The Spark in the Dark
by ohheylorna
Summary: In September 1977, a group of talented and determined young wizards and witches navigated their final year at Hogwarts amidst the backdrop of a raging war. They'd fall in love, mess up, and find out a thousand new things about each other inside and outside the school hallways - but what would their next move be? A Marauders era fic. Rated M for later chapters. [Jily & Blackinnon].
1. The Hogwarts Express (September 1977)

There are three things you need to know about the Hogwarts Express:

One: It always leaves from Platform 9 ¾ at King's Cross on the first of September.

Two: The train always leaves at exactly 11am.

Three: Peter Pettigrew will, without a doubt, need to run for the train. every. single. year.

Sirius Black lounged at the last door of the train, ignoring the stares of some fourth-year girls who were standing a bit too close for his liking.

Upon hearing the tell-tale sounds of the steam circulating through the pipes of the scarlet locomotive, he stuck his head expectedly out of the window.

Smirking to himself, he saw his friend running as fast as his impossibly short legs could carry him, trunk trailing behind him for the seventh September running.

"Come on, Wormtail!" Sirius yelled in encouragement, flinging the door open to pull Peter and his luggage onto the train. As the mousy-haired boy collapsed onto the train steps, Sirius pulled the door shut with vigour, and picked up his friend's trunk. "Merlin's balls, Pete" he yelped, almost dropping the heavy object "I thought we talked about packing light after last year!"

Peter's smile was impossibly wide as he wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers. "Good to see you too, Padfoot."

Sirius pulled him into a one-armed hug. "Come on, mate, Prongs and Moony have bagged us a compartment."

Much to the joy of the fourth-year girls, Sirius demonstrated his strength and legendary broad shoulders by hoisting Peter's trunk up and carrying it in front of him, leading Peter to their friends a few carriages away.

James Potter and Remus Lupin were sat opposite each other in the compartment, both staring in wonder at a small golden badge in James' hands.

"James, I'm not being a wanker, but are you sure this is legitimate?" Remus' brow was furrowed in confusion.

"That's what I thought" the boy before him admitted, running a hand through his messy hair. "I mean, I've already got Quidditch captain and I've never even _been_ a Prefect-" he cast a glance at his friend "sorry, mate, I thought you'd be a shoe-in for this."

Remus tried to play it off, but he couldn't deny there was a small bubble of envy in his stomach. He and James both knew it would pass. "It's alright, Prongs. I wouldn't have been much good as a Head Boy during my time of the month, would I? Personally, I thought Diggory was bound to get it."

James groaned in exasperation "but what does it _mean_?"

"I think it means that Dumbledore wants you to be Head Boy, James."

"But what about Quidditch? That's supposed to be my focus this year, Moony, I've got a great idea for a new formation that could really-"

"If you're talking about Quidditch for the whole train ride, I'm leaving" Sirius declared from the doorway, heaving a large trunk into the compartment that the pair could only assume belonged to Peter.

"Well, I've got a-"

"Yes, I know, a great idea for new arm exercises so that we can be better Beaters. Please let me be in the room when you tell McKinnon the good news, and we'll see if she can beat you to death with the bat before I can."

"Peter!" Remus broke the Quidditch talk by wrapping the last Marauder in a hug. "How was your holiday?"

Peter flushed with happiness at being reunited with his friends again. "Really good thanks" he turned to hug James "it was pretty hot, but the pyramids were really cool. I'd definitely love to go back one day and…Prongs, who did you steal that Head Boy badge from?"

"Close the door" James hissed. Sirius rolled his eyes and obliged.

"He's been losing his mind about it for the past two days" Sirius informed the group, nicking a piece of Remus' chocolate before sitting down next to the new Head Boy. "He's convinced it's a trick."

"But I thought Moony would be Head Boy" Peter admitted and, when Remus subtly elbowed him the ribs, he coughed and corrected himself: "I mean, congratulations, James. Do you know who Head Girl is?"

This elicited an even louder groan from James, who buried his head in his hands.

"It's Evans" Sirius beamed "bumped into Meadowes in the corridor earlier and she said the girls were celebrating before Evans and the Head Boy" he elbowed James pointedly "host their first meeting in the Prefects' carriage in an hour."

"What am I going to do?" James looked hopelessly at his friends. "I don't know how to be a Head Boy!"

Sirius shrugged "just let Evans do all the heavy lifting – she'll love it. She's been dreaming of this day since first year, mate."

Remus shot Sirius a warning look. "James" he said firmly "you can't let Lily do all of this on her own. Professor Dumbledore's chosen both of you for a reason – maybe it's his way of getting you to be a bit more…mature."

James' eyebrows shot up "Moony!" he admonished "I'm mature! I bought Denise Clearwater _roses_ for Valentine's last year, I'm the highest scoring Chaser in Hogwarts history, and McGonagall said I could definitely be an Auror if I applied myself. What's more mature than that?"

"Head Boy" Remus said with a small smile, popping a square of Honeydukes caramel into his mouth before offering the distraught boy a line as a truce.

James accepted and slumped back into his seat. "Evans is going to kill me when I walk into that meeting, isn't she?"

"Moony" Sirius said seriously "I need you to memorise every single detail of it for us. For research."

"Duly noted" Remus grinned. "Now James, do you want us to polish your badge before the meeting or-?"

Sometimes, James Potter really hated his best mates.

"How do I look?" Lily Evans twirled in her robes for the Gryffindor seventh year girls, her gold Head Girl badge glistening in the midday sun.

"Very professional" Marlene McKinnon observed from where she sat cross-legged on the floor of the carriage. "But are you sure you've polished the badge enough?"

Dorcas Meadowes, who was plaiting Marlene's hair, slapped the blonde playfully on the back of the head. "Be nice" she scolded "Lily, you look lovely. Don't be nervous, everyone knows you were made for this."

"Do we know who the Head Boy is yet?" Alice Fortescue asked, fanning herself with the Helga Hufflepuff Chocolate Frog card she'd just acquired.

No one volunteered an answer.

"I'm just glad the Prewetts left last year" Lily muttered "can you imagine?"

The three girls nodded in horrified agreement. Lily had dated Head Boy Fabian Prewett for the majority of the girls' sixth year, undertaking the usual Hogwarts dating rituals of Hogsmeade trips, fumbles at parties and sneaking in trips to the Prefects bathroom as an excuse to get naked together. Lily, predictably, had found herself getting bored towards the end of the and, in a very unpredictable move, had broken up with Gideon, mistaking him for his twin, at a Gryffindor party two days before their NEWTs were due to start.

To say that Lily had kept her head down for the last few weeks of sixth year would be an understatement.

Marlene was still fondly recalling the memory of Lily tripping over her own feet on the stairs up to the dormitory, pissed on Butterbeer, having spent the remainder of the party dancing with half of the Gryffindor Quidditch team, when Lily cleared her throat.

"No matter" the redhead smiled "there won't be any time for boy drama this year. Head Girl and NEWTs? It's going to be a nightmare."

Dorcas snorted "everyone's going to need a shag at some point this year, Lils. You'll explode from the stress if you don't."

Lily pulled at face at her dormmate, straightening the collar on her school shirt for the last time, before running her hand down the length of her robes. "Are you _sure_ I look okay?"

"Lily" Marlene stood up and took her friend's hands in hers "you look gorgeous but also a bit stern, like a sexy teacher, which is exactly what you need in a Head Girl. You're going to be amazing. This is your year."

"Go and knock 'em dead, Lils" Alice beamed, echoing Marlene's sentiment.

"Thanks, gang" Lily was momentarily flustered as she gathered herself. She squeezed Marlene's hands before dropping them. "I'll see you after the meeting, okay?"

"We're not going anywhere" Dorcas assured her, reaching out for Marlene's waist to pull her back into prime plaiting position.

"Good luck!" the trio chorused as Lily closed the door of the compartment behind her. Taking one last deep breath, she rubbed her slightly sweaty palms against her robes and held her head high as she made her way to the Prefects' carriage.

When she entered the carriage, it was surprisingly quiet. Usually, the room was filled with an excited buzz of all the Prefects catching up with each other about their summer or their plans for the year, but this morning you could've heard a pin drop.

She scanned the room and saw Remus sat with Rebecca Cole, a fifth year Ravenclaw who had just received her badge and was fidgeting nervously. Lily smiled at Remus, signalling that she'd catch up with him after the meeting. Although the pair had exchanged several letters this summer, she was keen to hear what he'd make of her posting.

As Lily made her way up to the top of the carriage, exchanging smiles and greetings with the majority of the Prefects as she went, she noticed with dread that Antonin Dolohov had returned for his final year as one of the Slytherin Prefects. Lily had had the misfortune of being paired with him on rounds briefly in fifth year, and had never quite recovered from the fear of him that, inexplicably, sat deep in her bones. She was hoping he might have just walked out of school and joined You-Know-Who already, but seemingly, no such luck.

She passed Amos Diggory who, to her surprise, had retained his Prefect badge. She was convinced that they'd have been sharing the Heads' office together this year.

"Congratulations, Lily" he smiled at her politely as she passed "very excited to see what the two of you are going to cook up for us."

"Thanks, Amos. Is the Head Boy here yet?"

The carriage silenced once more.

There was a cough to her right "here, Evans."

Lily's stomach dropped to the soles of her feet. She turned slowly, but she knew that voice anywhere. She would not let James Potter and his bloody Marauders turn today into a practical joke for her.

"Potter" she could barely keep the venom from her voice "kindly return that badge to its rightful owner and get back to your carriage. McGonagall will be distraught if I have to deduct points from you before we've even started the term."

The boy in question sat on a table, swinging his gangly legs out in front of him. His inkblot black hair was, as per usual, a mess, and he managed to look like he'd just rolled out of bed, even though Lily was fairly sure he'd just gotten dressed into his robes.

James took off his glasses and rubbed the lenses on his robes. He wasn't in the mood for a fight today. "It's my badge, Evans" he said softly "I can show you the letter if you like."

Lily was gawping at him. "Show me the letter" she demanded, flapping her hands at him in exasperation.

Everyone in the carriage held their breath as James wordlessly produced a letter with the Hogwarts seal on the back and handed it to the Head Girl. She scanned it quickly, her face falling with every line she read.

When she finished reading the letter, ended by Dumbledore's familiar signature, she looked across the carriage at Remus for confirmation, who nodded solemnly.

This was, potentially, the worst day of Lily Evans' life.

This was supposed to be her moment, and now she would have to share it with the imbecile who continually harangued her for a date, played obscene pranks on the entirety of the school, and cared about nothing but his stupid popularity and his stupid, _stupid_ Quidditch team.

She was not going to let someone like James Potter ruin this year for her. It was too important.

Lily gathered herself and handed James his letter back, refusing to look at him in the eye. She ignored the titters from the back of the room as she addressed the room confidently: "Hello everyone, if you're not meant to be in the Prefects' carriage, please leave now" when nobody moved, she continued "my name is Lily Evans, and I'll be your Head Girl for this year."

"And I'm James Potter" James raised a hand in greeting to the room "I'm, somehow, Head Boy this year and will be helping Lily with whatever brilliant things she has planned for the school."

Lily couldn't control her eyeroll, earning outright giggles from the spectators in the room who had seen versions of this dance between the pair for years, but she ploughed on nonetheless.

"So, here's what I…_we_ expect of you going forward…"

This might not have been the sort of year that Lily and her friends had been predicting back in their carriage, but it would be a year for some things: hatred, sex, love, pranks, parties and all-out war.

They just didn't know it yet.


	2. A Feast for Fools (September 1977)

"Are you _sure_ you're Head Boy?" Dorcas asked as the Gryffindor seventh years collapsed onto their benches in the Great Hall, ready for the Sorting and, more importantly, the first feast of the year.

James produced his letter for what felt like the millionth time that day and handed it to the girl beside him. Word had spread quickly on the Hogwarts Express, and the Marauders' compartment had been inundated with visitors after James' surprise performance at the Prefect meeting, including rival Quidditch captains who could barely contain their glee at James' full attention being taken off of the glorious sport for the whole year.

"Shame, mate." Hufflepuff's Bert MacMillan had said to him, clapping him on the shoulder "I was really hoping you'd wipe the shite-eating grin off Nott's face for us this year. Start as we mean to go on, an' all."

"If James hadn't been suffering an attack of imposter syndrome about the whole thing before, he was deep in the throes of one now, and he stared into space glumly.

"Look at it this way" Peter whispered, for James' ears only, "at least you'll be getting to spend lots of time with Lily this year. Maybe Dumbledore's trying to fix your love life for you?"

The Head Boy laughed hollowly. If that were the case, he was quite sure Dumbledore was on a mission to get him hexed to death by the most powerful student in the school.

"Cheer up, Prongs" Sirius kicked his best friend under the table "you're not allowed to be a moody bastard when we're about to eat our weight in glorious food. Plus, you still haven't told McKinnon about the arm exercises yet and-"

"Arm exercises?" Dorcas questioned, leaning forward into the boys' conversation. She handed James his letter back and motioned for Marlene to join in, too.

"We're not talking about Quidditch _already_, are we?" Marlene groaned, catching the mischievous glint in Sirius' eye and fearing the worst.

"Our dear Head Boy has decided that we need to improve our arm strength so that we can do the batting thing."

"The batting thing we've been doing really well since third year?" Marlene clarified, thumbing the bottom of one of her plaits.

"That's the one" James responded, allowing himself to be drawn into the conversation "so, I was reading about these exercises you could both do to improve your wrist actions. Apparently it's all in the flick-"

Dorcas spluttered, dribbling pumpkin juice down her robes.

"Attractive" Sirius acknowledged, nodding at the witch's front. "So, what do you think about the wrist exercises, Mar?"

Marlene was biting her lip to stop herself from snorting "you…you want me to do exercises to improve my wrist action?"

James nodded enthusiastically.

Sirius, knowing that his fellow Beater's mind resided in the gutter at the best of times, beamed at her. "I'm sure there are boys and girls alike who will be thrilled by this news, Mar."

"Agreed" Dorcas coughed, still trying to clear her airways of pumpkin pulp.

James did the gentlemanly thing and thumped her twice on the back, earning a teary eye and a hoarse "thank you" for his efforts.

"So, just to be crystal clear" Marlene's shoes knocked at Sirius' shins under the table "you want Black and I to improve our wrist actions for Quidditch by wanking?"

James' face flamed. "Well, that's not the specific exercise-"

"Wanking off other people, then?" Marlene was really enjoying watching her captain squirm.

"Now _that's_ a great idea" Sirius agreed "ten house points to McKinnon."

"You can't give house points, Padfoot" Remus piped up.

"Sirius" Marlene turned to face the boy beside her, noting for a moment that his hair seemed to have gotten even darker over the summer holidays, "how many people have we put in the Hospital Wing on the Quidditch pitch?"

"Five" the boy answered without hesitation, recalling a particularly spectacular memory of the previous autumn, when Marlene had sent a Bludger spinning squarely into Lewis McLaggen's nose when he was within touching distance of the Snitch. It had almost caused a full-scale riot from the normally placid Hufflepuffs in the crowd.

James had been so enthralled that he'd nicked the ball from Gideon Prewett after the match, who'd caught the Snitch seconds after McLaggen's nose had been broken, and kept it for prosperity.

"Do you think we need to improve our wrist action?" Marlene asked.

"Well" Sirius pondered "if it's a direct order from our captain, how can we say no?"

Marlene rolled her eyes "I'll think about it."

"The wanking part or the actual exercise part?" James asked nervously.

"The blonde raised her eyebrows "you'll never know."

"We will if you start shagging Ellie Corner again" Peter interjected "she wouldn't bloody shut up about you last year."

Marlene had the grace to flush slightly "I didn't count on her becoming a borderline stalker, did I? She's a Ravenclaw for goodness sakes, I thought they were meant to be sensible!"

"Probably didn't help that she caught you and Bert MacMillan snogging at the Ravenclaw party two weeks after you ended it with her" Dorcas reminded her best friend, ducking to escape the playful swat Marlene aimed at her.

"Alright, fair point, well taken, everyone" Marlene huffed "but Pete, we've really got to get you dating this year. Your encyclopaedic knowledge of who's gotten off with who is just fucking unnerving."

Remus could hear his friends tittering behind him as he continued to talk to reassure Lily in low tones further down the table "I know you don't like him, Lily, but I think this will be a really good thing for him. He can be mature when he wants to be."

"That's the problem, Remus" Lily hissed "he doesn't _want_ to be Head Boy, does he? He wants to spend hours plotting how they're going to throw the ball in Quidditch or whatever. He doesn't care about anything else."

Remus suppressed a small smile at her exasperation. "He cares about this school, Lil" he said softly, touching her arm briefly "and, I know it's a rubbish point to bring up, but he also cares about things that are important to you."

Lily's mouth dropped open "how can you _say_ that after what he did to Severus? James doesn't care about anything unless it directly benefits him."

Remus held up his hand, signalling that he was ending the conversation: "James is one of my best friends, Lil. I know he'll do a great job with this and, if you want him to stay out of your way, just tell him. He'll respect that."

Lily scoffed "like he's respected me for the past six years, you mean?"

Remus shook his head, and Lily knew she wouldn't get any more out of him. She stuck her bottom lip out petulantly. "I really wanted it to be you, Remus. You're just so…good at everything, and we get on, y'know. This year is going to be crap."

"Make sure you perk up a bit in time for the first years, eh?" Remus grinned "I'm sure they'd love to hear a healthy bit of optimism from their Head Girl on their first day of term."

The redhead sighed heavily and conceded "you're right, as always. Sorry for putting you in this position again, Remus."

The pair exchanged a small smile and turned their heads to the front of the hall as the aforementioned first years – impossibly short and some shaking with nerves in their robes – waited for the Sorting to begin.

There was no way that Lily Evans was going to let James Potter get in the way this year. Absolutely none.

"I don't think I'll need to eat for another week" Alice groaned, pulling at the waistband of her skirt in an irritated manner. "Why did you let me eat that last bit of artic roll?"

"Here" Sirius' hand brushed hers under the table, as he passed his trusty flask beneath the bench "that'll take the edge off. Welcome to seventh year!"

Alice smiled as she decanted some of the Firewhisky into her goblet under the table. "Is the Head Boy letting you get away with that?" she teased, passing the flask to Dorcas, who tipped a generous amount into hers and Marlene's drinks. Knowing that Lily wouldn't approve, the flask hastily ended up back in the hands of its rightful owner.

"Cheers" Marlene raised her goblet and clinked it with her fellow seventh years. "To one last year of raising mayhem" she winked at the Marauders and took a healthy glug.

"And studying for NEWTs" Remus added quickly, his cheeks tinged slightly pink from the ratio of pumpkin juice to Firewhisky in his cup.

Everyone, bar Lily, groaned at him. Peter began muttering something about Remus being a spoilsport under his breath when Dumbledore called for students to start making their way back to their respective Common Rooms.

Lily sighed and rose from her seat "come on, Potter" she chided "we've got to oversee the Prefects."

James obediently knocked back the rest of his pumpkin juice, wincing as the traces of Firewhisky seared the back of his throat. Remus flattened his robes and stood to guide the new first years to the Common Room for the first time. His voice, calm, authoritative, more pronounced than usual to hide his tipsiness, floated over the din of the rest of the table, and the eleven-year-olds fell over themselves in excitement to follow him out of the room.

"Oi!" James yelled over to the Hufflepuff table, where Amos Diggory and Amelia Bones were wrapped up in each other "didn't you hear Dumbledore, Prefects? Duty now, snogging later!"

"Professional, Potter" Lily said sarcastically, watching the pair break apart at lightning speed.

"Got the job done though, didn't it?" he smiled. Stood behind her, she could smell the Firewhisky on his breath.

"You stink" she told him as they made their way across the emptying hall, checking that nothing had been left out of place and that the all the students were headed in the right direction "don't let McGonagall smell that on you, she'll flip."

"That way, kiddo!" James corrected a flustered new Hufflepuff, who was trying to follow the Slytherins down into the dungeons "you don't want to end up down there, trust me."

He turned his attention back to the Head Girl "plus, it's a celebration, Evans. First day as Head Boy, last first day of Hogwarts and all that."

Her emerald eyes locked on his hazel ones for a second "that sentence didn't make sense" she informed him haughtily.

She turned to exchange greetings with Professor Sprout and both Heads nodding respectfully in McGonagall's direction as she peered over the top of her glasses at them, no doubt judging their performance from the other side of the room.

"You know, Evans" James was speaking out of the corner of his mouth as professors continued to pass them, many stopping to congratulate Lily whilst staring at James' Head Boy badge in confusion, "you could really do with letting loose a bit this year. This good girl act is going to kill you one of these days."

"It's not an act, Potter. Some of us are just good people who respect the rules."

The Great Hall was empty now, and he turned to smirk at her, eyes dancing with mischief and whatever other effect the alcohol had had on him: "but you're so fun after a few drinks, Evans. I know you're dying to break up with the wrong twin again, just admit it."

"You're a pig" Lily snapped, pushing in front of them as they began to walk towards the Gryffindor Common Room.

He laughed, following the swoosh of her robes as she made her way up the stairs, "oh come on, Evans. It was a joke!"

Lily, knowing full well that it wasn't a fucking joke, was propelled along the corridor by her fury. She stood outside the Fat Lady and waited for her Head Boy to catch up. "Do a length of the corridor" she ordered, pointing in the direction they'd just come from "I'll go this way and check we don't have any stragglers."

"Sure you don't want more of my delightful company?" James offered.

Lily didn't dignify the question with a response and set off for a short walk down the corridor. After checking the second broom closet, she was ready to turn when someone cleared their throat behind her.

Wand drawn, Lily found it pointed at none other than Severus Snape.

For some reason, she was taken aback every time she saw him. She'd spent most of her summer successfully avoiding him at home, integrating with muggle kids she'd gone to primary school with or visiting the girls, spending as little time in Cokeworth as possible. Every time she'd walked by the catacomb of streets that led to Spinner's End, she'd felt like someone was stamping on her windpipe repeatedly.

He'd gotten a little taller over the summer and his skin was even paler than usual. His dark eyes had sparked in alarm, but relaxed as she lowered her wand.

"I just wanted to say congratulations" he said hurriedly "I knew you'd get Head Girl. You've always wanted it."

Lily didn't trust herself to speak. This happened every few months, ever since the unmentionable incident in fifth year, he would approach her and just talk at her, as if nothing had ever happened. As if they weren't on two separate sides of the blood politics in the school.

It hurt, Lily couldn't pretend otherwise. Sev knew the _essence_ of her. They weren't of the same blood, but they were of the same dirt. They'd sprouted from the same place, both birthed in thick coal smog, both in a place they knew they didn't really belong. And, by all luck, they'd both blossomed at Hogwarts. They'd grown together in every sense of the word, but it wasn't enough, she reminded herself stubbornly. She couldn't be what he wanted, couldn't give him what he thought he needed. It was that simple.

"Shame about Potter, though" Severus continued, tapping his foot in the way he did when nervousness overtook him "whoever thought that was a good to put you with an imbecile like him needs their head checking."

Lily still didn't, couldn't, answer.

"Anyway, I thought maybe we could study together this year?" his eyes, usually cold, were pleading with her "you're the only other person who actually gives a shit about NEWTs and I – I, I really miss you, Lily" he faltered "you know that."

"I think it's time you left, Severus" Lily found her voice. "We're not friends any more, and I'm not going to be your study partner either. You know that."

Severus opened his mouth to say something else, but he was interrupted.

"I think the Head Girl asked you to leave, Snivellus." James had come to look for the Head Girl. His wand was raised in Severus' direction, and they all had evidence to suggest that he wouldn't ask nicely twice. "Don't make her tell you again. It would be a real shame for Slytherin to lose house points so quickly, or for me to hex that greasy hook off your face."

Severus' spine straightened "if it isn't the great buffoon with his shiny new badge."

"Go, Severus" Lily snapped, suddenly desperate to be surrounded by her friends where she could scream into a pillow freely. "Just go."

Snape bowed his head towards her and shot James a filthy look, before making his way towards the stairs. Lily noticed that James didn't drop his wand until her former best friend was out of sight.

"Sorry about that" James apologised "are you okay?"

"I was handling it, Potter" she spat "I don't need a knight in shining armour, you know."

James frowned "a what?"

She stared at him in disbelief. Had he ever paid attention in Muggle Studies? She feared she already knew the answer to that question. "I'm tired" she said quietly "let's get inside, shall we?"

"After you" James offered, nodding towards the Fat Lady, who was waiting for them expectedly.

"Cockatrice" Lily shuddered, internally scolding the Fat Lady for choosing such a grotesque password for the start of the year.

"Evening dears" she creaked forward on her hinges "two Gryffindor Heads! I think that's a first in Hogwarts history, you know. Did you have a good first day?"

"Delightful" Lily sniped "have a nice evening."

"Evans" James reached for the Head Girl's arm as she tried to barrel her way up the stairs to cry her heart out. Potter's voice was low and uncharacteristically serious "if he comes near you again-"

"You'll what?" she exploded "hang him upside down again? Bully him? Try and get him killed?!"

James blanched at the last mention, unsure of how much she knew about the incident at the Whomping Willow the previous autumn. "That wasn't-" he stopped, gathering himself "that's not what I meant, Evans. I know you don't need me, or particularly want me helping you, but you need to remember that there's a war going on out there and, for the most part, snakes lie with their own."

"I can handle myself, Potter."

"You're the best witch in this school" he promised her "but no-one here would forgive themselves if something happened to you on our watch. I won't let it happen on mine."

The choking feeling that had overwhelmed her that summer was back in her throat and, wordlessly, Lily made her way up the stairs.

"Fuck boys" she declared after opening the door to the dorm.

Marlene, Dorcas and Alice enveloped the Head Girl as she promptly burst into tears and, between them, prayed this wasn't a sign of what was to come.

Happy seventh year, indeed.


	3. A Rude Awakening (September 1977)

Lily Evans was many things: a talented witch, a loyal friend, the type of girl who stopped to stroke stray cats on the street regardless of the flea risk.

One thing she wasn't? A morning person.

Seven years in, her three roommates had set up a rotating system of waking Lily up. Every ten minutes, one of them would try normal tactics to wake her up – shaking her, saying her name loudly, pouring a few drops of water on her head, and once even blowing a trumpet directly into her ear. Whoever was the unlucky third (decided every morning by a game of rock, paper, scissors) would have to take a deep breath and _Levicorpus_ the redhead until she was hanging beneath the fabric of her four-poster.

She was usually awake fairly swiftly after that.

The most crucial part of the final step used to be ensuring that Lily's wand was out of reach, after she'd been on a particularly bad period one February morning in fourth year and set Marlene's eyebrows on fire. Now that they were all fluent in nonverbal spells, it was a blood sport of a whole different kind.

"It's alright" Marlene smiled encouragingly at Alice, who was eyeing the clock nervously "you can do it. If she wakes up and tries the Cruciatus curse on you, I can knock her out with this" she twirled the base of her Beater's bat between her fingers.

Dorcas laughed from the other side of the room, where she sat in front of the vanity that the four girls shared. They'd bought it the summer before fifth year at a car boot sale in Bermondsey and begged for Marlene's mother to transfigure it down to something they could transport to and from school every year. She'd obliged, and it was now their most treasured possession.

Marlene had stepped away from her hairdresser duties for the moment, having taken her plaits out first thing that morning, leaving her with blonde waves for their first day back at school. Dorcas sat meticulously combing through her afro with her favourite red pick, waiting for her best friend to help her with the back of her head. She could always do it alone, but having your hair done by someone else was another kind of magic altogether.

Alice had already showered, which should have left her feeling, cool, calm and collected, but she still felt a familiar, anxious itch behind her right ear as she prepared to wake Lily up for the first time that academic year.

"It'll get easier with practice" Dorcas reminded her "now wake the Head Girl up with the dignity she deserves."

The four of them had been up until the early hours of the morning, half of the time spent gossiping and trying to lighten the mood, and the other half failing to make Lily feel better about her first encounter of the year with Severus Snape.

"You did really well" Alice had reassured her, the four of them haphazardly sprawled across Lily's bed, passing around a bag of Fizzing Whizzbees. "You were strong and clear and you told him you still didn't want to be friends with him."

"I just don't understand why he won't leave me alone" Lily said, patting at her non-stop tears with the palm of her hand. Her eyes were starting to ache, and she willed herself to get a fucking grip and just go to bed.

"Because he's a creep" Dorcas pointed out, popping a sweet into her mouth. "He thinks he's entitled to your time and attention just because his feelings are hurt, even though he was the one who hurt you."

"You don't owe him anything, Lil" Marlene added "and, I know you can handle yourself, but it's a good job that James was there to take you out of the situation, otherwise he might've tried to follow you back into the Common Room or something."

Lily agreed on that much, at least. They all remembered immediately after Lily's and Snape's fight in fifth year, when he'd spent weeks tracking her across the castle, waiting on the other side of the Fat Lady for her to go to breakfast, or to do her Prefect rounds. She'd even taken up jogging at the crack of dawn that year, so that she could go with Marlene on her weekend runs, rather than head out into the grounds alone, never quite feeling at ease.

It wasn't that she thought Severus would hurt her, not really. But he was desperate for her and, as her mum had always told her, desperate men were a dangerous breed.

Lily had talked herself in circles and finally succumbed to sleep somewhere after one AM, and the other girls had worked mechanically, tucking her in bed, drawing her curtains, laying out her uniform and unpacking her modest make up collection for the morning.

They'd been through these motions for each other before – Lily first when she'd failed to transfigure a teacup into a toadstool in second year and spent her whole evening crying in the toilet (they managed to joke about this one now, but it was touch and go for the two years following); Dorcas when she'd been outed by a particularly spiteful Slytherin in third year after she'd spotted her kissing a Hufflepuff girl in the corridor (she fucked said Slytherin's girlfriend after a party in fifth year and didn't regret a second of it); Alice when her long-term boyfriend Frank Longbottom had asked for a break just before Christmas last year (thankfully, it hadn't lasted); Marlene after her previous editor at the Hogwarts Herald had told her that she wouldn't make it as a journalist if she didn't sacrifice playing Quidditch (she hadn't listened, and had unanimously been made editor at the beginning of their sixth year).

Everything they did for each other, no matter how misguided it could be sometimes, was done out of love and respect.

Which is exactly why Alice smiled as she silently cast _Levicorpus_.

The squeal that followed was a welcome sound to the already-awake Gryffindor girls. "Doesn't it feel like we're home now?" Dorcas beamed, as Lily hung upside by her ankles, her nightdress hanging over her face.

"Nice tits, Lil" Marlene grinned, throwing her bat back on the bed and joining Dorcas at the vanity. "You're lucky Doe and I don't date redheads."

Lily fell to her mattress with a thump as Alice apologised repeatedly.

"Rise and shine, Head Girl!" Dorcas hollered "it's your last first day at Hogwarts!"

Lily shook out her bedhead, her glorious red hair tangled in knots. Her green eyes were poisonous, as they all expected, and she made an audible hissing sound as she grabbed her dressing gown and marched into the adjoining bathroom.

"Good to be home" Alice beamed, slipping into her robes. "Good to be home."

"This is diabolical" James exclaimed at Gryffindor's table in the Great Hall, shovelling scrambled eggs into his mouth at lightning speed. "Have you seen this?" he asked Sirius, waving the piece of parchment in front of him.

Remus had excused breakfast, never his favourite meal of the day, to go to the Hospital Wing and say hello to Poppy Pomfrey. The Marauders, due to the secretive nature of their many visits to the wing, had established a good relationship with the twenty-something nurse and refused to call her Madam, despite the fact that she repeatedly told Sirius that she was married and that dating a student was frowned upon at best.

Peter, as per the first day of every year, was so sick with nerves that Padfoot and Prongs had abandoned him in their bathroom and opted for a hearty breakfast before their first day of mayhem began.

"Timetables?" Sirius guessed correctly. He scanned his own with interest, his eyes getting wider by the second. "Fucking hell" he said finally "when are we going to have time for parties?"

"Or Quidditch!" James yelped, spraying bits of egg over the space between them as a result.

"Or the paper" Marlene sighed heavily, taking a seat beside James. "Lily said she spoke to Professor Flitwick this morning and he was _already_ warning her about homework and revision. We haven't even started yet!"

"Don't forget Head Boy duties, Potter" Lily reminded the spluttering boy, slipping into the seat beside Marlene "patrolling and weekly meetings on Wednesday nights."

James raised his goblet of orange juice and wondered, fleetingly, if he could successfully drown himself in it.

"I knew taking six NEWTs was a mistake, mate" Sirius sighed, popping a grape into his mouth.

"You're telling me" James muttered. He pulled a quill and inkwell hurriedly out of his satchel and began extending the timetable, adding in his Head Boy responsibilities and potential slots for Quidditch practice and upcoming tryouts. Seventh year was starting to look claustrophobic at best, and the bell for their first lesson hadn't even sounded yet.

"I didn't know you boffs were taking six" said Marlene.

"We figured that it gives us a better chance" Sirius explained, pretending that he hadn't seen Lily's eyebrows raise in interest at the boys' previous comments. "At least then, if we bomb one, we'll still be good for Auror applications in July. How many are you taking, Evans?"

Lily flushed, knowing that Black had caught her out. "Only seven" she muttered. "McGonagall wouldn't let me take any more. I'm guessing she had an inkling that Head Girl would be coming my way, so…"

"Burnout doesn't look good on anyone, Evans, even when they're as gorgeous as you" James piped up, blowing on his timetable evenly to dry the ink.

"Glad to see you two are playing nicely again after last night" Sirius remarked, waggling his eyebrows at the Head Girl. "James was heartbroken after your tiff over Snivellus last night. The slimeball just isn't worth it, Evans."

Lily rolled her eyes and ignored the comment. "Does anyone else have Charms first?"

"Don't worry, Evans, we'll be there with bells on" Sirius assured her. "Maybe Flitwick will even keep our pairings from last year."

Lily had to admit that watching Sirius Black work was a lot of things: sometimes entertaining, mostly infuriating, but never an experience she was dying to repeat.

The bell sounded and the two girls rose from their seats. They didn't bother to ask the troublesome twosome if they wanted to follow them, everyone knew that they'd be fashionably late to every class that week, like they were just too cool for school.

Marlene must have been reading Lily's mind "not too cool to take six NEWTs, though" she grinned, linking arms with her friend. "But definitely not cool enough to take seven. There's only one witch cool enough to do that."

Lily rested her head on Marlene's shoulder. "Did I say thank you for last night already, or…?"

"Shut up, you prat" Marlene scolded "anytime."

"Do you think it looked like Potter was actually concentrating at breakfast?" Lily asked "like he was actually trying to fit everything in?"

Marlene shrugged "he might surprise you. I mean, it would be a surprise to all of us, but I still wouldn't put it past him to do it. He's a good leader, you know. Intense, but good."

Professor Flitwick greeted the two witches at the door "ladies!" he squeaked, as if he hadn't greeted them during breakfast that morning "welcome back. Are you ready to turn vinegar into wine?"

"My kind of charm" Lily muttered as the pair brushed past him and took their seats to begin their first lesson of the year.

"I didn't know it was possible to hurt this much" James groaned, throwing his gangly body onto the Common Room sofa that evening, having showered some of the stress away and eaten his body weight in roast beef at dinner. "Why does my brain actually hurt?"

"Probably because you haven't ever used it before" Peter joked, even though he was feeling deeply unfunny and, like the rest of the seventh years, in a state of shellshock about the day's events.

For a change, Sirius was mute, his brow furrowed as he flicked through his copy of _The Standard Book of Spells_ and scrawled notes into the margins.

Remus was sat at one of the tables with the girls as they discussed the finer points of the day's lessons surrounded by towers of textbooks. Lily, for one, looked about ready to cry.

Of course everyone had told them that seventh year would be hard, but they hadn't been prepared for it to be like this straight out of the gate.

In Charms that morning, Professor Flitwick had explained that they should be able to charm their vinegar into each of the three shades of wine – red, white and rosé - by the end of the week and that, by Friday, they should also have written three feet of parchment explaining the similarities in the composites of wine and vinegar.

Then it had been a whistle-stop tour of their Defence Against the Dark Arts syllabus for the year, and they would need to read fifty pages about the Patronus charm by Thursday. Their wands had, disappointingly, remained on their desks for the whole hour.

James, Peter and Sirius had then spent a mind-numbingly boring lesson tending to Flobberworms for the first years taking Care of Magical Creatures. They'd been promised that, during their next lesson, Kettleburn would show them the tanks full of Lobalugs he was currently having shipped in from a muggle who ran an oil rig in the middle of the North Sea. Merlin knows, the boys could use a bit of light relief in their timetables.

Lily had nearly burst into tears in their afternoon Transfiguration class when, after spending her whole summer reading up on the theory of full human Transfiguration, she'd failed to make it as far as changing a fingernail into a claw after a whole hour of trying. To add insult to her injured pride, McGonagall had set them a five-foot long essay on the dangers of human Transfiguration, due by Wednesday.

Sirius had finished the day spectacularly in greenhouse seven, when he'd accidentally set a Mimbulus Mimbletonia on fire, catapulting Stinksap over every other student in the greenhouse and a very unimpressed Professor Sprout, who had promptly given him his first detention of the year. As a result of Sirius' misstep, the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff NEWT students were to read a chapter on the many properties of Stinksap for their lesson on Friday, and had had to walk through the castle reeking of horse manure.

Remus, who hadn't elected the NEWT class, had observed Lily, Alice, Marlene, Sirius and James amusedly when they'd entered the Common Room just after four that afternoon. "Clearly, free periods are the safest option" he'd said dryly, continuing his head-start on the dreaded Charms essay.

"Right" Sirius sighed "time to go and clean up the Stinksap. Shall we all have a drink when I get back, just the eight of us? Down here?"

"Sounds good" James agreed, taking Sirius' textbook from him to begin his own essay. "Take Sprout some Firewhisky and see if it gets you out of there faster. Girls and Moony" he called across the room, ignoring the stares of the other students, who had an earlier curfew than they did "nightcap? Ten-ish?"

"Only if we can practice for Charms" Lily said sternly, causing everyone to stare at her in open-mouthed horror.

"I was thinking something a bit stronger than that, Evans, but whatever makes you feel like you're not breaking the rules" Sirius chided, ruffling her hair as he made his way out of the Common Room.

Later, by the embers of the fire, the eight of them raised a glass to another successful year at Hogwarts and prayed they'd all make it through without death by homework.

For once, Lily mused, taking a sip of her slightly vinegary wine, hanging out with the Marauders didn't infuriate her or make her skin crawl.

Maybe they were all maturing after all.


	4. Extracurriculars (September 1977)

"One more?" Sirius shouted down at Marlene, steadying himself as a particularly rough gust of wind almost sent him sideways on his broomstick.

They'd been outside for half an hour in the weak September sunshine. No-one had booked the Quidditch pitch in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon, and the Gryffindor beaters had been unable to pore over textbooks for much longer.

It also meant that they could practice without crowds of girls watching (mainly for Sirius, but some for Marlene) and interrupting their session or, worse, James inviting himself along to critique their technique.

They tried to do this once a week, just the two of them. They'd always found it a good way to clear their heads and get some fresh air when everything else felt like it was a bit much and, in their last year, they knew it would be more crucial than ever. It had been an unspoken rule over the past four years that when one of them came down to the Common Room in their Quidditch gear, the other would follow suit, no questions asked.

It was a strange thing, being paired up in Quidditch. Sirius and Marlene were never quite sure if other Beaters felt the same, but when you were on that pitch, you needed to be two halves of one brain and, often, one set of eyes. It meant that things could get intense between the pair very quickly, and that they had a clear method of communication. It was usually nonverbal after four years of practice, but when things went wrong, or got too close for comfort, it became explosive.

Neither of them were particularly aggressive people, there was just something about the way emotions ran on the Quidditch pitch that was completely removed from the rest of the world. You needed another half of you to back you up or pull you out of trouble. Sometimes, Sirius wasn't even sure James would get it if he tried to explain it.

But, as intense as it could be, Quidditch could be a great remedy for some things.

Sirius found that physically being above the world, up in the air, tended to give him a new perspective on whatever was bothering him. Not that he tended to have a lot of time to dwell during these sessions, what with the Bludger trying to take him out at every available opportunity and all.

Despite having lived with Prongs for the whole summer, he could feel that his body was reacting to Quidditch in a more sluggish way than usual – he was out of practice. He didn't quite feel like his body was his home at the moment.

It was like he'd had a second growth spurt over the summer, finally creeping closer to the six feet two he'd always dreamed. He'd never been gangly and goofy like James, or naturally svelte like Remus, but he'd been working on it. He'd been working out a lot in other ways – spending most days in the summer running or, much to James' amusement, swimming in the lido at Chiswick. He could feel his body had changed, and it had been confirmed when he'd overheard some third years swooning over his arms and broad shoulders at dinner the night before.

He just needed to get that Beater's arm back in action and he'd be laughing.

Marlene waved at him from down on the ground, her hazel eyes communicating with his grey ones to check he was ready for the release.

She'd changed over the summer too, Sirius had noticed. Her hair had been dyed a darker blonde and she was wearing it up more, which he knew was usually a sign of stress in his normally amiable Quidditch partner. If they were side by side, she was about half a foot off of his height, and lithe like an athlete. When she moved on the pitch, it was with the grace of a dancer and the ferocity of a firework.

Sirius had a strict rule that he couldn't fancy Marlene during the official Quidditch season, but, seeing as tryouts weren't for another week and a half, he'd settle on winding her up a bit more than usual just to see the skin around her eyes crinkle when she laughed.

And, of course, he'd check out her great arse as covertly as possible. It was the gentlemanly thing to do.

Her feet were currently planted firmly on either side of the box where they kept the Bludger, which was crashing into her ankles at every opportunity. She bent down and held her fingers up to count: three, two, one…

She gave it a helping thwack on its way up to Sirius before swinging a leg effortlessly over her own broom and racing to join him.

Sirius had been ready for the ball, and batted it back in Marlene's direction with his infamous underhand swing, propelling it into the atmosphere before it came colliding back down at speed.

The blonde laughed as she was forced to turn upside down to avoid the ball, diving for the floor. She practiced her backhand – not her strongest suit, even after all these years – and sent it back in the direction of the boy above her.

"Need to work on those wrist exercises, McKinnon!" Sirius guffawed as she shook out the tightness in her right hand.

"You offering, Black?" she teased, flying for the hoops at the end of the pitch.

He didn't answer, just kept grinning at her in that infuriating way of his, as he dodged the Bludger and challenged it to come back to him. It did, aiming squarely for his forehead. He hit it with all his might, sending it spiralling down the pitch, where Marlene was waiting eagerly.

The Bludger had gotten increasingly irate as their practice went on. A whistle from below signalled that the Hufflepuff captain, who had booked the team out for an unofficial session with their soon-to-be-Seeker, had arrived and that it was time to wrap up, but it wasn't proving easy.

After Marlene had taken a blow to the stomach, and Sirius several to the knees, they succeeded in wrestling the ball to the ground and – after Sirius lay flat on it and inched it forward with his full body weight – back into the box.

"Getting back into the swing of things, eh?" Bert MacMillan beamed at the pair, who were trying desperately to catch their breath.

"I wish" Marlene gasped "at this rate, we might be yours for the taking this year."

Bert winked at her, still smitten by their kiss at a party the year before, "don't worry, I won't tell your Captain. Have you met Amber Coutts? She's looking to be our Seeker this year."

Marlene beamed at the fifth-year, who she'd met at the first Hogwarts Herald meeting of the year the evening before. She'd assigned her a short piece on the gossip column about this week's feud between the Bloody Baron and Nearly Headless Nick. "Hi Amber, good to see you again."

"I don't think we've met" Sirius held out his hand to shake "Sirius Black."

Amber snorted to herself "I know who you are." She shook his hand anyway, so Sirius reckoned that it couldn't have been that bad a comment.

"Your reputation precedes you again, Black" Marlene laughed. "I'm not going to ask how or why" she assured the Hufflepuff "it's safer not to."

"Well, it's either the charm, the wit, my good looks, my ability to pull off a prank and still look devilishly sexy-"

Marlene saw a faint blush under Amber's bravado and held a hand over Sirius' mouth to shut him up. She knew that look on girls around Sirius, and it didn't tend to end well. She wasn't going to let him put his foot – or anything else – in it on the third day of term.

Not that he was like that, not as much as everyone thought he was, anyway.

"I think we've taken up enough of your practice time, Bert" she said warmly "good luck, Amber, and maybe we'll see you on the pitch soon."

Sirius removed Marlene's hand from his mouth: "yeah, and we'll try not to break your face when we do."

"I'd like to see you try" Bert called to the two Gryffindors as they walked away, carrying the boxed Bludger between them "she moves like a feckin' rocket!"

"I'll bet she does" Sirius muttered, for Marlene's ears only.

Marlene groaned "can you just keep it in your boxers, please? You do not have the spare time to get into whatever drama that situation is going to cause you."

Sirius was positively offended. "Oi, she could be the love of my life!"

Marlene raised an eyebrow. "Mhmmm."

He shot her a fiendish grin. "Are you jealous?"

"I'm too busy to be jealous, and you're too busy to be horny" she retorted, loading the box into the shed at the end of the pitch.

"I knew I'd wear you down eventually" he joked, slipping a casual arm around her shoulders as they walked back to the castle.

"Sirius, we both know you're not completely repulsive, you're just incredibly fucking annoying most of the time."

"I think that might be one of the nicest things you've ever said to me, McKinnon."

She didn't disagree.

*******

James' palms were sweating.

He wasn't quite sure why. He'd never been this nervous before a Quidditch match or even when the Marauders had pulled off a particularly grandiose prank and, yet, here he was, stood outside the Head's office he was going to share with Lily, and rubbing his clammy hands on the front of his robes.

Taking a deep breath, he pushed the door open, and greeted the Head Girl with: "evening, Evans."

Lily, sat at one of the two desks in the room, barely looked up from the parchment in front of her "you're late, Potter."

"I am not!" James yelped in indignation "you said the meeting started at half seven! I'm fifteen minutes early."

"I told you to be here at seven so we could go over the plan for the meeting, James" Lily barely bothered to propel the sigh from her lips, which somehow made her disdain for him even worse. As if being disappointed by him was the default expectation, and she couldn't be bothered to make a big show of it anymore.

James took in the large office in front of him – the two desks sat on the back wall, one tucked in either corner. Lily had, predictably, started sticking up complicated scribbles on her side of the wall and had a jug of wildflowers on her desk, but his own looked lonely and a bit too academic for his liking. She'd lit the fire, which roared in front of three sofas, presumably for the Prefects to sit on when they came in. James vowed not to let Sirius know about the size of the office, for fear that he'd finally his lifetime dream of a threesome on the spacious sofas. All in all, it would be nice to have somewhere to come for a bit of peace and quiet.

Moving across to his own desk, James kicked back his chair and swivelled to face the Head Girl. "Okay, I'm sorry. We still have some time though, don't we? Can we go over some stuff now?"

"Fine" Lily snapped, spinning to face him. She unceremoniously dumped a pile of papers into his lap "these are the rotas for Prefects patrols for the next fortnight. I've cross-checked them across the pairs we've had before and made sure that Dolohov is paired with a pureblood that's sensible and obviously you and Remus aren't on for any full moons, so…"

"Obviousl-wait, what?"

Lily dismissed him with a flick of her hand and bulldozed through her agenda: "I was thinking if we keep them in these pairs for two weeks, we can then take stock and see what's working and what isn't. I also looked at the amount of house points that were given by Prefects last year, and reasons for them being taken away too, and I think we need some clearer rules about acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, so you and I have a meeting with McGonagall about that next week. Obviously, we'll have a ten minute QA at the end and give everyone a chance to speak about any issues that are impacting them, or any ideas for the Christmas Ball, and" she paused momentarily for breath "I think that's it."

James nodded slowly "oh-kaaaaaay. Um, what's left for me to do?"

Lily frowned "what do you mean?"

"Well, I mean, it's great that you've done all this work Lily – really, it's amazing, but this is a partnership. It would have been nice to have been consulted before you did all this, so we could set the agenda together."

"James" Lily let out a sharp, sarcastic laugh "you're not actually going to take this seriously, are you? Shouldn't you be teaching the Quidditch team how to pass a ball properly or something? Everyone knows that you think this is beneath you."

"I do not!" James was indignant "Dumbledore's given me a job to do, Lily, and I'm going to do it as best as I can, but I need you to let me in on this, or it's not going to work."

"It will work perfectly well if you just stay out of my way" Lily told him. "I've spent years planning how I can do some good as Head Girl, Potter, and your laziness and complete disdain for the rules are not going to stop me from making a difference at this school."

He wasn't quite sure how they'd both moved to be standing, but their bodies were suddenly very close together and he could almost feel the air between them vibrating with rage. "That's what this is about, is it?" he hissed "you running Hogwarts with an iron fist so that it becomes the Lily show and everyone hates you for your schedules and rules? We're teenagers, Lily, you have to let people live a little for Merlin's sakes!"

If he saw Lily flinch at the insult, he didn't react. The problem with insulting Lily was that it just made her more spiteful: "what's the matter, Potter?" she snarled "worried that it will stop being the Marauders' show and all of a sudden you'll realise you're actually nothing special at all? You don't deserve to be remembered in the footnotes of Hogwarts history as Head Boy – it's an insult to all of the people who have worked hard to clean up your messes over the years, Remus included."

"Don't you dare bring Remus into this" James warned the redhead "this is between you and me, Evans, and you can't tell me I'm a shit Head Boy without giving me a chance."

"What's the point?" Lily threw up her hands in exasperation "you'll just skate through and do a great job without putting in any effort or doing any preparation whatsoever, just like you always fucking do and everyone will talk about you like you're the best thing since sliced bread."

"Then let me actually try" he pleaded "please, Lily, let me run next week's meeting, and I'll run the committee for the Christmas Ball. If the patrolling timetables don't work, I'll re-do them, but I need you to let me play the game here."

Lily shook her head. It had been a long day already and they had to survive this meeting without killing each other in front of the Prefects. "The Prefects need a Head Boy and Girl who are on the same page. We're never on the same page, Potter, and any time we are you use it as an excuse to humiliate me or try and get in my knickers."

James' voice softened "that's not true, Lily. I think you're brilliant, and I'm sorry if I make you feel like your opinion only matters when it matches mine. That's not what being a good leader's about and, if we're not at least presenting a united front, the Prefects will use it as an excuse to be arseholes and rule the roost."

"Is that what you teach them in Quidditch?"

"It is, actually" James smiled ruefully. "You should see Marlene and Sirius when they're on one – they're absolute terrors."

Despite herself, Lily let out a small smile. "I still remember the fight they had in the Common Room after the Ravenclaw semi-final in fourth year. I don't think they talked to each other for three weeks afterwards."

"They bloody well did when I put them in a room, confiscated their wands and made them talk about it" James told her. "Look, Lily, I'm not very good at the admin stuff, but I am good with people, okay? I'd like to learn the other side of it so that we can be the best Heads that Hogwarts has ever seen. Please let me help."

"Will you put as much effort into it as you do into Quidditch?"

James hesitated "I can match the time I put in, but I can't promise I'll be as enthusiastic about it."

"And we'll present a united front for the Prefects?"

"Where we can. If I disagree with you, I'll do it constructively and respectfully. If we need to, we can always put stuff to a vote."

Lily bit the inside of her cheek so that her face didn't betray the shock she felt at Potter's newfound diplomacy. She tried one last tack: "and you won't try and get into my knickers this year?"

The boy in front of her let out a heavy sigh "Evans, I'm not making any promises. If by some miracle, you fall madly in love with me this year, then of course I'm not going to say no, but if you're asking me if I'm going to pursue you, the answer's no. I don't have the time and you've made it crystal clear that you despise me, but I hope we can be friends."

"Fine" Lily said coolly.

Looking at the clock on the wall, she turned back to the matter at hand: "You can hand out the timetables when everyone sits down and I'll let you lead the discussion about the Christmas Ball tonight. If it goes well, we can pitch to McGonagall that you'll head up the committee when we see her next week."

"And the timetables?" James persisted.

"If they don't work, we'll re-do them together" Lily conceded "I've got the knowledge about who should and shouldn't be put together, but it wouldn't hurt you to actually do some writing for a change."

"Thank you. And I'm sorry for shouting at you."

"I'm sorry for shouting, too" Lily admitted "I meant every word of it, but I shouldn't have yelled."

"You've got some lungs on you, Evans" James snickered "maybe there's a spot for you as Quidditch commentator this year?"

"Shut up, Potter, and get the schedules ready."

With a knock at the door, the first Prefect arrived, and the legacy of Lily Evans and James Potter as Head Girl and Boy at Hogwarts officially began.

Whether or not they'd kill one another before the end of the year, though, was a completely different matter.


	5. Maniacs and Martyrs (September 1977)

"Have you _seen_ this?" Alice waved her copy of the Daily Prophet in exasperation. "They've practically taken out an advert in the Prophet. How is that allowed?"

Peter reached across the table and laid the paper in front of him and Remus. Sure enough, a double page feature with a masked Death Eater stared back at them with the headline _'Maniacs, or Just Misunderstood?'_

Remus scanned the sympathetic article in front of him, his stomach dropping to the balls of his feet as he read over details of torturing and murdering muggles and the plan for a pureblood future. He pushed his half-eaten bowl of porridge away wordlessly. He doubted anyone in their right mind would have much of an appetite after reading that.

The students had been back at Hogwarts for almost three weeks, and all the Seventh Years were adjusting to less sleep, more stress and the unprecedented amount of homework. For the past few weeks, it had been easy to forget that a war continued to rage on outside the castle.

"Frank will be furious" Alice continued "he's barely been sleeping – his boss is convinced that attacks are going to be more frequent between now and Christmas. They've all been pulling double shifts to try and get more intelligence and it's just not working."

Peter didn't say anything for a few moments, trying to take in the contents of the horror in front of him. When he did speak, his voice was steady and quiet: "what can we do to help?"

"Officially? We need to keep the Slytherins in check" Remus was sure "any time they push the boundaries, we need to report it to Lily and James right away. Then they can push it up to Dumbledore. Unofficially, however…"

Alice allowed a small smile to ghost at her lips. "I always forget that you're the genius behind the Marauders, Remus."

Peter let out a small cough of indignation, relenting as his friend elbowed him in the ribs.

Raising her head from her hands, Alice sneaked a glance over at the Slytherin table, where most of the older students were pored over copies of the paper, laughing and pointing or, worse, in deep and serious discussion.

She accidentally locked eyes with Snape, who smirked in her direction and raised his goblet. She felt bile rise in her throat and swallowed it, not letting her facial expressions betray her.

When she turned back to the boys, Remus, ever the Prefect, had risen from his seat to reassure some of Gryffindor's new first-years, who were reading the same article with watery eyes and trembling hands.

"Must be hard" Peter remarked "being away from home for the first time and not knowing what you could go back to."

Alice had to agree. At least they'd grown up with a faint knowledge of the war. Every year, it had gotten worse – more families missing, more explicit threats against muggleborn students, graffiti of the Dark Mark appeared in textbooks, on exam papers and in toilet stalls. Gradually, the war had become claustrophobic and every Sixth and Seventh year in the school could feel the pressure building.

They were all just waiting for the inevitable explosion.

* * *

Lily couldn't face going to join everyone for breakfast.

She knew she should, she should be a leader, she was Head Girl for goodness sakes. And yet…

She hadn't been sleeping well, that was the truth of it. The self-proclaimed queen of the eight-hour reset had been too troubled over the past week or so, and she was scared that the cracks were starting to show. There was too much to do and so little time that sleep was fast becoming overrated.

It wasn't like Lily didn't usually work hard. None of this had ever come easily to her – not like Potter and Black, or even Doe – but she had a laser-sharp focus that she prided herself on. She was productive, had a thirst for learning, and could usually master a new spell, concept or piece of magical history after a bit of studying and some hardcore practice.

But this year, the year that it mattered most, it just _wasn't_ clicking.

And that thought absolutely terrified Lily Evans.

Add Head Girl priorities on top of a never-ending load of homework, constantly trying to bargain with James Potter – who, admittedly, had been a little less heinous after their showdown before the first Heads meeting, and keeping up with what was going on with her best friends, Lily was starting to crumble.

She'd been up since five that morning, and she wouldn't have gotten to sleep much before 1am either, if Doe hadn't been sneaking back from her date with Emmeline Vance far too late, and seen that light from Lily's wand had trickled from under her heavy bed curtains and onto the floorboards.

Dorcas had whispered her name gently, before pausing and adding sheepishly: "I haven't interrupted a wank, have I?"

Lily drew back her curtains quickly in indignation, revealing to Doe that she was fully-clothed and surrounded by a sea of heavy textbooks and scrawled notes.

Dorcas grimaced and moved a copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ to the bottom of the bed so that she could sit next to her friend. "Lil, what are you still doing up? You know you've got a full day of classes tomorrow."

Lily rolled her eyes, trying to play this off like it was a light occurrence. They both knew it wasn't. "Sorry, mum. I'm just catching up on some reading. How was your date?"

"You're not changing the subject, love. What's going on? Why aren't you sleeping? Is there something we can do?"

"I'm just too tired to sleep" a short, bitter laugh rolled off her tongue at the end of the sentence. "I know that doesn't make sense, but I just can't…"

"Shut your brain off?" Dorcas guessed "is it homework, Head Girl stuff, or do you just to let off some steam?"

"All of the above" Lily knew she couldn't keep talking about this, or the floodgates would open, and she was so fucking tired of feeling miserable when she should have felt like she was on top of the world. She couldn't keep crying on the girls every week.

"Does any of this" Dorcas gestured to the academic mess across Lily's bedspread "need to be done for tomorrow?"

Lily shook her head.

"In that case" her friend rose "we're going to pack this all up, so that you can get some sleep. Tomorrow, we'll see if Slughorn has any Sleeping Draught he can spare. If not, we'll make one. Then we can all sit down and figure out how to help with your workload and we can even tell Potter to pull his weight as Head Boy if we need to, he doesn't argue with me."

Despite herself, Lily let out a small smile. No-one really argued with Doe – she was the most powerful dueller in the school, and only reminded people when she needed to.

"And then" Dorcas smiled triumphantly "we're going to find you someone to shag. Trust me, it's the stress relief I didn't know I needed. Marlene's probably going to burst soon, and Alice has been taking much longer showers that usual. Sometimes, Lil, you just need to get physical."

Lily scoffed "with who? There aren't any eligible bachelors this year."

Dorcas started lifting the textbooks from Lily's mattress into her open trunk. "I'm sure Potter would give you a go if you asked him nicely" she stage-whispered.

"_Doe!_" Lily exclaimed.

Marlene's curtains pried open: "whatsappenin?" she croaked.

"Nothing" Lily hissed "go back to sleep."

"Mission in the morning, Marls" Dorcas explained to her best friend "we're going to get Lily laid."

Marlene grunted and turned her head back into her pillow, letting out a small yawn.

Dorcas leaned over Lily, having moved the last of her papers, and kissed her on the forehead. "We get through it together, remember?" she said. "Sleep, Lil, otherwise you'll be grumpy and Potter might not survive the day tomorrow."

Lily let Dorcas close her curtains and she extinguished her wand with a silent _Nox_.

In her head, she knew it wasn't going to make any difference. It was all too much. Her bones felt heavier, her body weight was living in the soles of her feet, and her head was a swirling mess. There was no way anyone would be able to make her see a logical way out of it.

And then, of course, there'd been the cherry on the cake.

After waking at the ungodly hour of five am, she'd laid in bed for fifteen minutes, listening to Marlene locate her Quidditch gear for one of Potter's pre-breakfast practices. Tryouts were this evening, and the existing team were expected to be in fighting shape to show the new recruits how it was done.

When she was sure her friend had cleared the room, stomping down the stone stairs in her boots, and that Dorcas and Alice were still asleep, Lily had risen and dressed quickly. She threw a load of textbooks and notes from the night before into her bag and slipped out of the dormitory in search of her own sanctuary: The Heads' Office.

It had changed a lot since she and Potter had taken it over. Shockingly, he'd had the great idea of making a large timetable on the wall for the two of them. It showed their goals at the top and what they'd be doing that week, both personal and professional, so that they could pick times in the office for peace and quiet when the other was in class or, in the Head Boy's case, at Quidditch practice.

He'd added things to his side of the room too – a Tutshill Tornados banner stretched over the top of his desk and a photo of the Gryffindor boys sat in pride of place near the window. He'd even taken to leaving his lucky Snitch in a small glass case when he was in the office, to stop himself from fiddling with it.

This week, he'd had swatches of upholstery delivered for the Christmas Ball colour scheme. Lily had never seen anyone look so intently at four different shades of the same basic colour, but she had to hand it to him, he was turning a corner.

Lily plonked herself at her desk and worked until the sun came up, shifting through papers about effective uses of Reducto, why the muggle printing press was still used across wizarding Britain, and the five most common number combinations in Arithmancy. She wasn't sure that any of it was making more sense, but it felt good to be going through the motions, like flexing her favourite muscle.

When she was satisfied that her head was about to explode, she put down her papers and stretched out on one of the long sofas. If she could just close her eyes before Herbology, she wouldn't mind skipping breakfast.

That was when Artemis' beak had knocked at the window.

Lily thanked her for her copy of the Daily Prophet and the hand-written letter that accompanied it. Greedily, she'd torn into the letter from her dad first, his spidery scrawl always a delicious code to crack. He wrote to her every week and, the more excited he got about something, the more unpredictable his handwriting.

Opening that letter had been the first mistake.

The second, of course, was opening the Prophet and seeing the blacked-out eyes of a Death Eater in front of her.

She was still trying to digest it all when James and Marlene burst in through the door, sweating and still clad in their scarlet Quidditch uniforms. "Have you read it?" James asked his Head Girl, trying to gage her reaction from her unusually vacant eyes.

Lily nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

"Are you okay?" James asked softly, crouching down in front of her. "You look shattered."

"I've had better days" Lily said measuredly, hoping that he'd just link it back to the newspaper article, and leave her alone.

James pursed his lips and Marlene reached around from the back of the sofa to rest a comforting hand on the muggleborn's shoulder. "I'm going to do a special edition of the Herald" Marlene explained hurriedly "today. In response. James and I were thinking you could write an opinion piece for it, and maybe we could set up a support group, for anyone who's worried, to go and talk to someone?"

"I can't imagine how shit this is for you, Lily. But we're going to take a stand against it. Hogwarts isn't about these values, and Marlene's going to help us show that" James promised "I've spoken to McGonagall and Remus to set up a support centre this afternoon during his free period, and I've put tryouts on hold so that Pete and I can take the evening shift, Sirius is going to have a nap and take the night shift, but I think we'll need more people so-"

"You've cancelled tryouts?" was the only thing Lily could focus on.

James frowned "there are some things that are more important than Quidditch, Lily."

Of course there were, but Lily didn't think that James Potter was capable of acknowledging that.

"I agree, but you shouldn't leave Gryffindor in a worse position than the other teams" she couldn't believe the words were coming out of her mouth "re-instate tryouts, excuse Marlene from them, and anyone who's trying out can get an afternoon slot at the support centre so their flying won't be too affected. I'll take the evening shift with Pete."

"If you're absolutely sure" James was hesitant.

Lily nodded "we should go now and catch the end of breakfast" she said sternly "if we announce the support group in front of the while school, it makes it easier for everyone. Marls, can I come and dictate my piece to you later? You know I'm not as good a writer as you are. You can make it work."

"Of course" Marlene agreed. "Can you announce that I'll need all staff of the Herald to report to me at lunchtime please? I've got second period free, so I'll start setting up the presses then."

"Fine. Potter, we'll gather the Prefects at lunch and ask them to split their patrol shifts – half out in the castle, and the other half in the support centre. Minus some of the Slytherins, obviously." Lily's brain was warming up now.

They weren't going to stand for this. Not now, not ever.

It was time for James Potter and Lily Evans to show Hogwarts exactly how they were going to run this school.

* * *

Marlene's hair was up in a stress-bun and her school shirt was covered in splatters of black ink by the time the staffers of the Hogwarts Herald made it to their dedicated workspace on the third floor that lunchtime.

"Right" the editor clapped her hands together. "Thank you for coming. We've got four hours to get this special edition of the Herald knocked together, and we've very kindly been excused from class to do it. Before I start, is anyone confused as to why we're here?"

There were a few titters from Slytherins at the back. Marlene smiled grimly "glad you think it's funny, gang.

"Let me make one thing clear to everyone here: what was printed in the Daily Prophet was, legally, freedom of speech. It's also hate speech and it's not what we stand for at this school or at this paper. Everyone is equal, regardless if you're a pureblood, a muggleborn or a Squib, okay? If you believe anything different, you can leave this fucking office right now and not come back.

"There are students today who haven't stopped crying, because this is the reality of what's going on outside Hogwarts. Maniacs want to hurt you and your family, maybe even kill you, for your blood status or for standing up for people who they deem unworthy. That's absolute horse shit. The strongest witches and wizards at this school are made up of all different birth-rights and backgrounds. You see them every day, you work alongside them, play alongside them in Quidditch, and party with them on the weekends. Every student at this school has the right to feel safe, and that's what this paper is going to be about."

She cleared her throat. "So, is anyone leaving this office, or are you all in here with me?"

Two young Slytherins stood up and promptly walked out.

"Good riddance" Marlene said. "Let's get started then: Coutts, Tintwistle, Smith, you're on support centre stuff please, head down there and get me some photos, some logistics of how to book, and an interview with Remus, who I think is running it at the moment. We can give anyone there anonymity if they want to speak about the impact the article's had on them, so please be mindful of those who want to remain anonymous appearing in photos.

"Kirksby, _please_ sort out this cursed printing press for me, and then set up the photo studio and run production, or else we're never going to get out of here on time.

"Garcia, Nowak, Caster, I want you to go through the anonymous letters we had last year and pull out the stats for hateful behaviour against muggleborns, please, knock it up into something. Do we think we'll see a rise after today? What can people do to protect themselves?

"MacDonald, Patil - McGonagall has agreed we can set up a Duelling Club. She's approached Dorcas Meadowes to run it, so can you get some words from the two of them? Bones, can you see if we can get time with Dumbledore and see what he thinks about this? Is there anything in the Hogwarts Code of Conduct that we can pull out to help us?

"Cameras are at the back, sensitive photos _only_ please, remember, this is a life-or-death situation we're talking about. If anyone needs me, I'll be looking through Daily Prophet stories about recent attacks on muggles so that we can tie this back into the real world and helping the Head Girl with our front page article. Let's get this issue done."

* * *

Sirius had woken up from his nap in a foul mood. To be fair, he'd been in a foul mood since reading the Prophet article this morning.

Add a whole day of walking past muggleborns in tears, Dolohov's lot setting off fake Dark Marks to scare people – and promptly being given detention by Slughorn for doing so – and a brutal, rainy Quidditch tryout without his partner Beater. Yeah, Sirius Black was running on anger, and there was still one person he needed to see about it.

Well, maybe two.

"Are you coming down for dinner?" Remus asked. They were the only two in the dormitory, with James still talking tactics with the new Quidditch players and Pete on duty at the support centre with Lily. "Rage eating will do you a good turn before tonight. Plus, the Herald should be done now, so I'm sure Marlene will be there."

"What does Marlene have to do with anything?" Sirius grumbled, throwing a jumper on over his The Damned t-shirt.

Remus gave him a knowing look "she'll want to hear all about tryouts, won't she? And you were in a foul mood that she wasn't there with you."

"Because it was cold, dark and raining" Sirius reminded him "she got to be in the warm, with lots of people to boss about, and all she had to do was write some words! I had to freeze my arse off. Plus, have you ever tried to demonstrate what a pair of Beaters do, but on your own? It's impossible, Moony."

"Uh-huh."

Merlin, Remus was infuriating.

The Great Hall was a calmer scene than it had been at breakfast. The support group had drawn some people out of the hall and others were serving serious detentions for their behaviour that day. Across each house table, copies of the Herald, with the headline _'Maniacs, actually…'_ had been scattered. Some students were reading them eagerly, others ignoring them until they got to a safer place and, predictably, some Slytherins were trying to catch Marlene's gaze as they set them on fire.

She wasn't about to give them the satisfaction. Everyone at the Herald had played a blinder this afternoon and, to top it all off, she'd personally sent fifty fresh copies to the Daily Prophet offices to show them how real reporting was done. She didn't doubt that Dumbledore would be getting an angry owl from the editor, but it was worth it.

"Well, look who finally showed up" James grinned, reaching out for a one-armed hug as Marlene sat down next to him at the table. "The paper looks great, Mar. Well done. Lily's piece is just…well, it's great."

"Thanks, but that was all her. I just wrote it" Marlene stuck a forkful of mashed potato into her mouth, suddenly ravenous. "How were tryouts?"

"Cold" her captain answered "Sirius was in a right grump without you, y'know."

"He's always in a right grump, he needs a shag" Marlene fired back, waving her fellow Beater over as he and Remus entered the room.

"Careful today, Mar" James warned her.

She didn't need to be told twice. There was always the unspoken issue whenever subjects like blood purity came up. It hit Sirius harder than most and, with Regulus sat a few tables away tearing the Herald into pieces as he ate, the distinction couldn't have been clearer.

"How was bunking off?" Sirius asked Marlene, swinging effortlessly into the free seat next to James. "I've lost three toes to frostbite since this morning."

"Diddums" Marlene cooed. "Did you find someone to replace me in anger, or…?"

"There was no-one even close to you, don't worry" James reassured her.

"Thanks boss" she winked at him, earning a dramatic huff from Sirius, who was enthusiastically loading his plate up with chicken and mushroom pie.

"This looks great, Mar" Remus joined them, holding several copies of the Herald. "Are you going to frame it?"

Marlene shrugged, fatigued at the thought of doing anything more with the special issue of the paper, even framing it. "Depends if it helps people, doesn't it?" she smiled weakly.

"Course it will, Lily wrote most of it" Sirius smirked, taking a copy from Remus to read as he scoffed his dinner.

Marlene kicked him under the table. "Git."

Sirius read in silence, which was unusual for him, because he was usually too busy doing stupid impressions or taking quotes out of context. Marlene smiled to herself, that was a good sign.

"Right" James slapped his best mate on the back "are you going to be good to relieve Wormy and Lily soon? I've got a few bits to do at the Heads' Office."

"Sure" Sirius popped his remaining green beans into his mouth and resisted the urge to lick the gravy from his plate like Padfoot would. "Just one thing I need to do first. Well, two."

James frowned. "And those things are…?"

"I need to tell McKinnon that this is a really good issue of the Herald and I won't deface any of the pictures like I normally would."

"Can I get that in writing?" Marlene asked, learning over the table with the Sugar Quill that she'd been sucking to clear her palate.

"Absolutely not, his reputation would be ruined" Remus teased.

Sirius took the half-dissolved Sugar Quill and stuck it in his mouth like a cigarette. "Thanks, sweetness. Now, just need to go and have a quick word with a man about a thing."

His three friends looked at each other, concerned.

"Padfoot" James said softly "are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Not here" Marlene added "do it in the hallway."

"And don't murder him, he's just a kid" Remus reminded him.

Sirius catapulted himself from his seat and made his way over to the Slytherin table, where his presence was met with howls of disapproval.

"Tell your girlfriend that her paper was shit, and she'll be hearing from my father about it" Nott yelped. "This is real hate speech."

"Shouldn't you be with your blood traitor friends?" Snape sneered.

Sirius blocked them all out. He locked eyes with his younger brother, who had been mindlessly making disgusting phrases with the cuttings from Marlene's articles. Regulus, who had always been so impressed by people with money and power and how he could use them to his own ends; Reg, the cleverest person he knew, who should have left that rotten house when he'd been given the chance.

"Hallway" Sirius said, not waiting to see if he been followed. He knew that he would be. There was still something there – a bond that couldn't be broken, even when they weren't talking, even when they were both on opposite sides of the fence. It drew them to one another.

That's family for you, though. Can't be with them, can't be without them.

"What do you want?" Regulus asked when the brothers reached the hallway, feigning boredom.

"You think this is funny?" Sirius hissed, throwing the Herald at his younger brother. "You think this is some sort of fucking joke for you and your sick friends? People are dying, Reg."

"Not here, they're not" was his petulant reply.

"I'm going to make one thing really clear, little brother" Sirius leaned down for effect, their faces so close they were almost touching. The pair had always looked alike, but Regulus' skin was getting paler as the days went on, the black rims around his eyes more pronounced. "I love you. You're on the wrong side of this, and I know one day you'll realise it. It's not too late."

"To what?" his younger brother snorted, recoiling as he did so "join a bunch of losers in a war you're not going to win?"

Sirius' mouth went dry. "You haven't-"

"Joined him? Not yet, but I will. He's on the right side of history here, brother, and you and your little mudblood friends are going to lose."

Sirius shook his head "you think any of those people care about you, Reg? You think anyone in there" he gestured towards the hall "is going to look after you when it all goes wrong? They're not your friends – they care more about the cause than anything."

"Severus is my friend."

Sirius' laugh came out like a bark. "Well, carry on with that, because he does great things to his mates, doesn't he? And, by the way, he's still chasing after Lily like a little lost puppy, wanting to be friends, so I have no idea how that fits into your fucking warped agenda."

"I'm bored of this conversation now" his younger brother announced. "When you've made the right choice about your priorities and you come home, I'm sure Mother would have you with open arms."

Sirius didn't have anything left to say. He knew it wouldn't make a difference, not today.

The Black brothers had chosen their sides, and he would just have to hope with all his might that Reg would see the smoke and mirrors for exactly that.

"You okay?" James was leaning against the doorway to the hall.

"Never better" his friend sighed.

"Come on, mate" the Head Boy muttered, clapping him on the back "you've done your best, and we've got some people to help. I'll walk you – I need to make sure that Evans gets off on time, she didn't sleep well last night."

Sirius nodded mutely, letting himself be guided, not for the first time, by James Potter through the hallways of Hogwarts.

Who needed bloodlines when you had real brothers, anyway?


	6. Revenge (September 1977)

"Thank you all for coming" Professor McGonagall's voice rang out around the Great Hall, which had been cleared of its four tables for a change. "Last week's Duelling Club was very well received, so I'm pleased to hand it over to Miss Meadowes for another week. Does anyone have any questions before we begin?"

"Yeah, can I be paired with Snape so I can hex him to bits?" Alice muttered, for Lily's ears only.

The redhead smiled. "I think Black's got a head-start on that one" she whispered, eyeing Sirius, who was tapping his wand impatiently. His eyes were boring into the back of Severus' head, which was turned as he whispered into Regulus' ear.

Marlene poked Sirius with her wand "your non-verbal spells aren't that good, you know."

"A boy can dream" he smiled "are you here to stop me committing murder?"

She snorted "please. I'm here to ask you let Lily get a shot in first."

Sirius considered it. "Seems fair" he agreed. "Can I duel you first? I want to get some easy practice in."

Marlene drew her elbow back sharply, colliding with his ribs. Sirius let out an audible splutter.

Dorcas cleared her throat, staring straight at the two Gryffindor Beaters with an unimpressed look on her face. "Thank you for coming" she repeated "we'll be taking lessons today from one of the best duellers in wizarding history. Please welcome-"

The doors to the Great Hall crashed open and everyone turned as the three remaining Marauders bundled into the room. Remus at least had the decency to look sheepish. He'd seen Doe duel and didn't fancy being on the wrong side of her.

"Gentlemen, you seem to have rather rained on my parade" a familiar voice chided them as their Headmaster took to his place next to Dorcas. "Take your places please."

"Sorry, Professor" Peter squeaked, mortified.

What had been complete silence turned into excited titters as students from all year groups, all houses, realised that they were going to get to see the legendary Albus Dumbledore duel.

"Please continue, Miss Meadowes" Professor Dumbledore said warmly.

"Thank you, Professor. As I was saying, it's a pleasure to have you here today, and I was hoping that we could split the room into small groups to practice the most important part of duelling – defensive spells.

"To demonstrate, Professor Dumbledore and I will duel" Dorcas gulped loudly, earning a chuckle from the audience. "He'll be using a mixture of verbal and non-verbal spells against me, which I will need to defend. All of my defensive spells will be verbal, so that everyone knows the basics. When you practice you can use whichever you prefer, but communication within your group is key.

"Professor McGonagall, Professor Dumbledore and I will be circulating the room to help your groups with any issues you might be facing. Keep it clean, okay? Anyone who's seen to be casting too harsh a spell, and without a fair warning, will be dealt with by taking away house points and whatever else is deemed appropriate by the Professors."

James, who had shuffled over to the other Gryffindors, leaned across to whisper in Lily's ear: "does Doe have a death wish? Duelling Dumbledore?"

Lily laughed softly, ignoring the heat of his breath on the side of her neck "she likes a challenge" was her reply. "I don't doubt she can give him a run for his money."

"Nor do I" James hastened to add "she's the most hardcore of all of us. There's no way she won't be first in line for Auror training."

"Thank you, Miss Meadowes. Shall we begin?" Dumbledore's voice boomed from the front of the room, pulling the Heads back into reality.

Dorcas smiled, and took her stance, wand at the ready. She threw a cursory glance to the corner of the hall where her friends had gathered. Marlene winked and Alice stuck both of her thumbs up enthusiastically. She exhaled deeply, huffing a curl out of her eyes. "Ready when you are, Professor."

"I'll start easy, Miss Meadowes" he assured her, before raising his wand: "_Stupefy!_"

Dorcas cast the stream of red light aside with an effortless "_protego._"

Dumbledore held his hand up and addressed the audience "as Miss Meadowes has just demonstrated, confidence is crucial to any spell. Clear pronunciation, and undeniable intent will only seek to intensify your duelling abilities."

Without warning, he aimed a trip jinx at Dorcas' feet, causing her to fall to the floor. "Apologies, Miss Meadowes, but it's imperative that you pay attention to your partner's body language in duelling" he beamed at her "shall we go again?"

Dumbledore spent the next five minutes attempting everything from a jelly-legs jinx to _reducto_, flames flying out of his wand, to icing the floor, but Dorcas moved like a dancer, side-stepping, ducking and shielding at every opportunity. The audience watched open-mouthed as she finished the duel with a smirk and an expertly-placed "_expelliarmus_".

"O-ho!" Dumbledore exclaimed in glee "bravo, Miss Meadowes! Shall we get everybody else started?"

They split into pairs instinctively. Peter sidling up to Alice, knowing that she was a good teacher. Remus found himself paired with Amos Diggory, the two were old Defence Against the Dark Arts partners, Sirius chose Marlene which left…Lily and James.

"Scared, Evans?" The Head Boy waggled his eyebrows as they faced one another. "Promise I'll go easy on you."

"You can be defence" Lily told him "I've got some rage I need to channel."

"My pleasu-" he didn't finish the sentence before Lily sent a stinging hex in his direction, which he knocked back easily. "Merlin, Lily, give me a chance!"

"If you try and _levicorpus_ me, I swear to Merlin…" they heard Marlene say behind them. They shared a fleeting grin, before drawing their wands again.

Lily had spent most of the week knocked out on the after-effects of the strong Sleeping Draught the girls had procured from Professor Slughorn. It felt like her brain was just waking up again, and she was determined to use it properly. She still felt like she was drowning in hundreds of different commitments, but she was tired of being angry for no real reason.

Well, there was one reason. She just didn't know how to process it yet.

But target practice on James Potter would inevitably make her feel better.

"What knickers are you wearing today, just out of interest?" Sirius inquired, as Marlene dodged his _petrificus totalus_ and sent a leg-locking curse at him in retaliation.

"Get a life, Black" his partner laughed. "Remus has more of a chance than you at this point."

Sirius held up a hand to his chest "my heart!"

Marlene hurled a bat-bogey hex in his direction, which he dismissed with a lazy flick of his wand, catching Peter in the rebound.

"Sorry, Pete!" Marlene yelped "wasn't meant for you."

"Not a natural dueller, are you, McKinnon?"

"Trust me, Black, I can shove this next hex right where the sun doesn't-"

"Mr Black, Miss McKinnon!" Professor McGonagall barked from the other side of Remus "less flirting, more practice please."

"Sorry, Minnie, it's just my natural charm!" Sirius called back, laughing as he missed a _stupefy_ by millimetres.

"I will end you" Marlene assured him, shielding herself as she took a step closer.

"Keep talking dirty to me, McKinnon, I've got a murder to plot and this is filling my time nicely."

Marlene held up a hand to signal a pause to their duel. "You're not seriously going to pull anything here, are you?" she hissed, turning her head slightly to watch Snape and Regulus in a cordial duel. The concentration on Snape's face was undeniable.

"With the Headmaster in the room? Sure, why not." Sirius responded sarcastically.

"Just…be careful, alright?"

Sirius' face softened. "Course, who would back you up in Quidditch if I went to Azkaban forever?"

Marlene rolled her eyes. "Reckon I'd cope, you know."

"Incorrect" Sirius grinned, getting ready to aim another hex at his friend. "You can't live without me, McKinnon."

The blonde shook her head and bit back a small smile. The warmth in her stomach, which she was quite sure was matching a certain spark in his eyes, was not good. Not good at all.

* * *

"Victory!" James exclaimed, triumphant, as he helped Lily up from the floor. Professor Dumbledore was dismissing the room, and he'd managed to land a_ protego_ which had been strong enough to knock Evans clear off her feet. "You okay? That can happen if you stand too close."

"I'm fine" Lily lied. She knew she was a sore loser, she didn't need to hear it from Potter, especially when she was in a fragile state mentally.

"Come on" he smiled "I'll walk you to the office? I've finally chosen a colour scheme for the Christmas Ball, I think you'll be surprised at how daring it is."

Despite herself, Lily found herself matching his smile. His enthusiasm for the Christmas Ball was both completely unexpected and utterly contagious. "I was actually going to get some fresh air" she flapped at the collar of her school shirt "it's been a bit stuffy in here. But we could go afterwards?"

"Sure" James turned to the Marauders and gave them a wave "see you at dinner!"

The unlikely pairing strolled into the grounds together in comfortable silence. The air was bitter, just as Lily had hoped it would be. The crisp winter toned down the red in her cheeks from the effort of duelling and, noticing her shiver, James shrugged out of his robes and draped them over her shoulders.

"Aren't you cold?" she asked him as they made their way towards the bottom of the hill.

He shrugged. "Not really. You get used to it with Quidditch, you're out here in all weathers, so..."

Lily nodded. The silence fell again.

"Lily, can I ask you something?" James' voice was uncharacteristically serious.

"Of course."

"Are you okay?"

Lily shouldn't have been so ruffled by the question, but she was. "What do you mean?"

"It's just…the other week, with the stuff that was going on in the Prophet, and you weren't sleeping. You've just seemed a bit, I don't know, disconnected? I know you've got the girls to talk to, but I just wanted to see if there was anything I could do."

"Why?"

James frowned "why what?"

"Well, why would you want to help? I thought you weren't going to try and pull the romantic crap this year." Lily internally scolded herself for being such a bitch as she waited for his answer.

"I thought we were friends, Lily. I worry about my friends" James looked hurt by her accusation. "Haven't we been getting along okay? Plus, we're spending all this time together, I just…you know what, forget it."

Lily was quiet for a few moments. "Sorry, James" she said quietly. "I'm not really okay, to be honest" she could feel tears prick at her eyes and she blinked them away furiously. "I suppose I didn't expect this year to be so…"

"Busy?" James filled the space for her.

"I guess so. How are you doing it all? Head Boy, homework, Quidditch captain? I feel completely out of my depth as it is."

He smiled at her "Evans, why would you think that I wouldn't understand how you felt? Aren't we in this together?"

"But you're always so happy. And you're getting _everything_ done, and I just feel like I can't keep up with anyone and I clearly can't fake being okay if you of all people have noticed."

James sighed, the clouds of his breath threatening to crystallise in front of him "I don't feel like I'm giving my all to anything" he admitted. "I'm terrified for our first match next week, if the Christmas Ball is a bust then I'll be a laughing stock, and I had to go and see Dumbledore on Monday because I got a W on my Potions essay. I haven't even told Sirius that."

He collected himself "what I'm trying to say is, everyone's struggling, and you have a huge amount of responsibility this year. You're doing brilliantly, but it's not going to be easy. But we'll all muddle through it together. You know we can always study together in the office if everything else gets too much."

Lily, who was taken aback by his admissions, took stock for a second or two. "Thank you, James. I'm sorry if I haven't been easy to deal with lately." She didn't know what possessed her to take his hand and give it a quick squeeze, but she did.

He ignored the frissons of electricity creeping up his hand and nodded. "Any time. Shall we head in? Your hands are freezing."

She nodded and let him lead them back towards the castle, wondering how on earth she'd become friends with James Potter and, more pressingly, when he'd started to become so flipping mature.

Maybe she'd been missing out all this time, after all.

* * *

"Listen" Remus tore open a chocolate frog as he sat in the middle of the boy's dormitory. "You cannot get caught if you're going to do this, not tonight."

"Agreed" James nodded "but that's why I'll be with Filch, talking to him about the Christmas Ball theme, it leaves Padfoot and Wormy to carry it out."

"Are you positive that this is a good idea?" Pete asked. He always was the nervous one, and the rat in him was making his nose twitch.

"I think it's the best idea I've had all year" Sirius said confidently, fishing the Invisibility Cloak out of James' open trunk, his pockets clinking as he bent down. "Have you got the map?"

Pete pulled the blank parchment from his back pocket. "Yep. Remus, you'll be sentry?"

Remus saluted, chomping on the last of the frog.

"First prank of the year, boys" James beamed. "Don't let me down."

"Aye aye, captain" Sirius slapped him on the back. "Go and charm Filch about chair covers."

James did as he was told, cornering Filch minutes before dinner was due to start. They stood together just outside the Great Hall as the Head Boy excitedly showed his chosen swatches for the theme – icy blue and sparkling silver – before walking the caretaker into the hall, Mrs Norris circling under their feet as they did so, and showing him his preferred configuration of chairs and tables for the event.

"What do you think?" he finished, turning to face Filch, who wore a dumbstruck expression.

"It can be done" the cantankerous caretaker grumbled. "How big's the tree going to be?"

"We haven't decided that yet" a familiar voice said behind him. James smiled warmly at Lily as she entered the hall for dinner, alongside the girls. "Can we let you know, Mr Filch? James is just getting a bit overexcited about the whole thing."

"Amazed he's done any work" Filch said pointedly.

"Thanks for your time, mate" James stuck out a hand to shake. Filch looked at it, suspicious, and moved away.

James shrugged. "I tried."

"Ready for food?" Remus appeared behind the Head Boy and Girl. "I'm really craving toad in the hole tonight…"

The meal got underway, and it wasn't long before Sirius and Peter joined the other seventh year Gryffindors at the dining table.

"Doe, you were wicked today" Sirius lauded their resident duelling queen "what's on the agenda for next week?"

Dorcas laughed, spearing asparagus with her fork. "You just want to get a head start on Mar."

"I don't think I'm going to be winning any duels in the near future" Marlene admitted glumly "how's your nose, Pete?"

Pete sniffed heavily. "Please don't remind me."

They all laughed, and sank into easy conversation with one another. Alice was explaining the mystifying concept of the day's Herbology homework to her classmates, when they were interrupted by a shriek from the Slytherin table.

"What the fuck?" Dorcas muttered, standing on the bench to check she wasn't imagining things.

She wasn't. Everyone at the Slytherin table had aged by about seventy years. Ivy Rook was screaming at her wrinkled hands, whilst Nott and Dolohov were turning a deep shade of scarlet under their beards. Snape drew his wand in preparation.

"Congratulations, now you're as outdated as your blood politics!" Sirius cheered from the other side of the hall, raising his own goblet and taking a long swig.

The hall erupted into chaos as the Slytherins drew their wands and advanced on the Gryffindor table (at a snail's pace, one might add). Professors had risen from their seats to intervene and the other houses had descended into hysterics.

Poor Professor Slughorn was beside himself, alternating between yelling his displeasure and fretting about how long it would take to brew a potion to reverse the effects of whatever had been put in his house's pumpkin juice.

Lily looked at James, who quietly clinked his goblet with his three best friends, and felt her heart sink to the balls of her feet. "Nice one, you morons" she snapped, pushing past them on her way to the door.

"The usual suspects, I assume?" Professor McGonagall said from above Sirius' head. The head of Gryffindor sighed heavily "Black, Lupin, Pettigrew, Potter, detention. I'll see you in the Astronomy Tower at 7pm for the foreseeable future."

"But Professor-" James began. He was silenced by her cutting stare. Minnie was _not_ fucking about tonight.

"I'm incredibly disappointed in you, Mr Potter" she remarked. "I thought Head Boy was the right choice for you, but I think you need to go and explain to Miss Evans that she'll need to carry your workload whilst we decide what to do with you."

* * *

"I cannot believe how irresponsible you are" Lily hissed.

She and James were in the Head's office again. They were meant to be going over table decorations for the Christmas Ball but, instead, James Potter had come to tell Lily Evans that he had detention later that evening.

"I didn't do any of it!" the Head Boy insisted, holding his hands above his head in surrender. "Are you saying that my best mates are incapable of pulling off a prank without me?"

"You're telling me" Lily jabbed him in the chest with a finger between each word "that you didn't know they were planning anything?"

James shifted his weight from one foot to the other "well…"

"And that you didn't get involved in any planning? None whatsoever? So you've been give detention for absolutely no reason?"

The tips of James' ears were starting to redden "look, Evans-"

She scoffed. "Whatever, Potter. For the record, I thought you were actually acting like a grown up and doing an okay job as Head Boy, but clearly you just can't wait for Dumbledore to take your badge off of you, so you might as well just go and hand it into him."

"That's not true" James insisted "I want to be Head Boy! I've spent three days doing the menu for the Christmas Ball!"

"Then fucking grow up, James!" Lily exploded "because we cannot have this argument every other week."

"But they-"

"Don't you _dare_ tell me they deserved it. Don't you dare. What happened to all the good work we were doing with this? The Herald, Duelling Club, the support centre? Why would you go and ruin something that's this important with a stupid prank?"

James couldn't answer.

Lily's voice was weak when she spoke again "don't you understand how much danger you're putting muggleborns in?"

"Lily, that's not fair."

"No" she retaliated "what's not fair is that every muggleborn in this school will have to suffer this week because you've riled up some of the most dangerous people in Hogwarts for your own entertainment. Did you hear what Nott did to Colin Kirksby on Monday night? He cornered him in the corridor, immobilised him and removed half the bones in his arm, one by one. He's still growing them back in the Hospital Wing. This is a game if you're a high-society pureblood, Potter, but not for people like me."

As much as James resented the implication that he was in any way a member of high society, he had to admit that the Head Girl had a point.

"I'm sorry, I…we, we weren't thinking. We just wanted to do something to make a difference, wind them up a bit."

"You'd all already made a difference" Lily pointed out "and now you've completely fucked it up. If you'll excuse me, I'd like the office to myself to go over the Christmas decorations. I'll get Alice in here for a second opinion. You can look at them if you ever get out of detention."

James nodded and left the Head Girl to it, letting the door slam behind him.

Lily shook her hair out of her eyes, shaking the idea of him out of her head. Clearly she was wrong and he hadn't changed a bit.

She'd always worked better alone anyway.

* * *

A knock came at the door of the office shortly afterwards, and Lily rose to answer it.

"Severus?"

She could see that the spell had been reversed. She didn't doubt that he kept an antidote for almost every potion imaginable – he'd always been the more competent of the two of them at understanding the big picture.

She stepped into the hallway and locked the door behind her, not wanting him in her office. "What are you doing here?"

"Is Potter here? Is that who you're protecting?" he laughed hollowly, motioning at the closed door.

"No, I'm working. What do you want?"

He pushed some of his hair out of his face, and she noted that he looked even paler than usual. His eyes were like black holes. "Did you know what they were going to do at dinner?"

Feeling uncomfortable, Lily took a step into the middle of the hallway, hoping to guide him away from her door. "Of course I didn't. Is that all you came here for?"

He shook his head. "No."

"Severus, what do you want?"

She'd been paying so much attention to him that she hadn't seen the big picture, she never did.

"You, mudblood" said a familiar voice from behind her.

Lily turned, hand on her wand. She was just in time to see a bright flash of red coming from Dolohov's own.

Then the world went black.


	7. Caring's a Curse (September 1977)

Remus wiped a rag over the final nameplate on the 1924 Quidditch trophy – which, surprisingly, had been awarded to Hufflepuff over Slytherin by quite a margin – and set it down on the desk in front of him. "Professor, would you like me to start another?"

Professor McGonagall looked up from her marking, taking in the clock on the other side of the wall. "If you could start one of the ceremonial goblets, Mr Lupin, that should suffice. How are the rest of you getting on?"

Sirius groaned theatrically and spat on his rag. The House Cup of 1957 was an old friend, at this point. He lost the amount of times he'd been in this room, staring at his own reflection in hundreds of metals until his arm gradually began to ache. They'd been in detention for hours and his patience was starting to wane.

"Minnie, this is pointless" Sirius exclaimed, earning a raised eyebrow from his Head of House. "You have to admit, it was a great prank."

Professor McGonagall continued to look unimpressed. "Mr Black, the merits of your actions are non-existent. Perhaps, if you wish to stop spending time in detention, you could all learn from other students, who seem to have no problem with abiding by the very simple rules of this school?"

"Bo-oring" Sirius sing-songed. He placed the House Cup down on his desk, signalling he was finished, but made no effort to pick up another piece of silverware.

James was biting back a smile when their detention-keeper turned on him: "something funny, Mr Potter?"

"No, Professor" the Head Boy answered. He wished that, just once, he could think with his brain instead of his bravado.

"I'm sure Miss Evans is very disappointed in your presence here" McGonagall made the low blow. "I know we certainly expect better of anyone elected Head Boy or Girl. It would be a shame for the Christmas Ball not to have a leader because you decided that mischief was more rewarding than any alternative."

"Burn" Peter muttered under his breath. James made a mental note to throw his filthy rag at him when McGonagall wasn't looking.

There was a knock at the door and Professor McGonagall called out: "come in."

The Marauders were surprised to see Amos Diggory at the door. The Hufflepuff usually radiated an undercurrent of happiness – a bit like an excitable puppy – but tonight he was trembling, and white as a sheet.

"Mr Diggory, are you alright?" McGonagall was out of her seat and the four boys followed suit. Peter was nearest to the door and pulled out a chair for the Prefect, gesturing for him to sit down.

"Sorry to interrupt, Professor" his usual voice, bright and booming, was barely above a whisper. "But Professor Dumbledore sent me to find you…there's been…there's been, um-" he took a shaky breath and a tear fell from under his glasses "there's been an…incident involving a Gryffindor student. A muggleborn. He's asked you to go to the H-Hospital Wing im-immediately."

"What's happened?" James pressed, resting a hand on Diggory's back, feeling his body wrack as he sank deeper into sobs. "Has someone been hurt?"

"That's quite enough, Mr Potter" McGonagall chastised. "Mr Diggory, please accompany me to the Hospital Wing, I'm sure Madame Pomfrey will have something that can assist you. Gentlemen, I will dismiss detention for this evening and will see you at the same time tomorrow."

Amos allowed himself to be guided from the chair by the Head of Gryffindor house. He was still choking on his own wails when he spluttered: "I-I found her, Professor, I thought…"

Professor McGonagall nodded. Her lips were pursed. On the outside, she was the measure of cool, calm and collected. On the inside, she could feel the panic rising in her throat. "Was the student hurt badly?" she asked, trying to lead him to the door.

"It just…it shouldn't happen, should it?" the Hufflepuff protested through his tears. "And not to…not to Lily."

Remus dropped the goblet he'd been holding. It clunked on the floor, causing Professor McGonagall to jump. The colour had completely drained from her face. The Marauders watched as she caught a breath, gathered herself, and ordered Diggory downstairs.

She paused at the doorway and turned to the young men in her charge.

James and Sirius were, naturally, halfway behind her, on auto-pilot. She could see the clouds in Black's eyes, and Potter had gone a peculiar colour. Both their wands were out, tucked up their sleeves, like they were about to blow the castle apart. Remus, ever the responsible one, had bent to pick up the goblet he'd been cleaning, but his hands were shaking too much to grab it. Peter was frozen. He just couldn't move. That didn't surprise her.

"Gentlemen, where in the name of the Four Founders do you think you're going?"

"Minnie, you are joking" Sirius scoffed. "We're coming with you."

She closed the door. "All of you are to listen to what I say next _very_ clearly: I do not know what has happened to Miss Evans, but if any one of you causes distress in the Hospital Wing, or anywhere else in the castle" she looked pointedly at Sirius' sleeve "I will have you expelled faster than you can say _Quidditch_. Do you understand?"

As she swished out of the room. James turned to Sirius, his voice cracking: "this is my fault."

Sirius shook his head. "Prongs, if it's the Slytherins, it's on them. And everyone in this room."

"I shouldn't have left her alone I-"

"Not now, Prongs" Peter urged, finally gaining momentum. "We have to get to the Hospital Wing. Lily needs us."

"Yep" Remus agreed, his eyes aflame "and then we need to go and have a little chat with Dolohov and his bunch of imbeciles."

What none of them realised, not even McGonagall, was that the Marauders wouldn't be the ones to tear the castle down that evening.

They'd leave that to the law-abiding students amongst them. 

* * *

"Tell me again, from the beginning" Marlene was leaning against the wall to keep her legs from buckling, supported by Bert MacMillan, who had a tight grip on her elbow.

They were outside the Hospital Wing. Dorcas and Alice were inside, but Marlene couldn't face it. She'd taken one look at Lily, small and unconscious in the stark white bed, covered in cuts and bruises, and had to leave.

"We were walking on the third floor, round the corner from the Head's office, and we heard" Bert paused, taking in the look on the Gryffindor girl's face, who nodded for him to continue "we, um, heard laughing and like this…cracking sound? There were maybe four or five people around her, she was on the floor, just not moving. They had green scarves pulled up over the bottom of their faces, you know? So you could only really see their eyes. Amos and I started trying to stun them, but it was too late, they left, and she was just…"

He didn't need to finish the sentence. The two Hufflepuffs had thought the Head Girl was dead, that was all there was to it. Tortured and beaten to death by a group of Slytherins in the middle of her own hallway.

"Dolohov, Nott, Snape?" Marlene pressed.

Bert shrugged. "It all happened so quickly, Mar, I-I'm so sorry. If I knew, you know I'd tell you. But it was just so…brutal. I just can't believe it."

As Professor McGonagall brushed passed them, reaching out to give Marlene a quick squeeze on the shoulder as she barrelled into the Hospital Wing, the blonde took a deep breath.

"Will you go and get Dorcas and Alice for me?" she asked "I can't stand going back in there. There's something we need to do."

"Of course" Bert smiled weakly at her.

Marlene leaned her head back against the wall. She was kicking herself for being a coward. Gryffindors were supposed to be brave, loyal, and she couldn't have stayed in that room for more than a few minutes. One of her best friends, one of her sisters, lay broken in a bed twenty feet away and she couldn't go in for fear of completely losing it.

"I'm sorry" she verbalised it to Dorcas and Alice as they came out to meet her. "I should've been in there."

"You will be when she needs you, that's all that matters" Alice reassured her.

"If we're not all expelled by then" Doe added, twirling her wand between her fingers. "You ready?"

The three girls didn't need to speak. Alice could have sworn that she could feel electricity crackling around the trio as they walked, down, down, down, until they reached Dungeon Thirteen./

Marlene pushed it open and, just there he was, just as they knew he would be, his head in his hands as he tried to stop crying over his Potions textbook.

Severus fucking Snape. 

* * *

He hadn't meant for it to go that far.

He didn't think they would actually hurt her.

He had to keep telling himself that, that he thought they were just going to scare Lily, maybe stun her, just to prove a point.

They'd acted like animals. Worse than animals. And once he'd smelt blood, once they'd started to chant the word _mudblood_ over and over again, once he'd brought his heel down on her nose and cracked it as Dolohov and Nott cast pinpricks and cut slurs into her body – pushing up her skirt and ripping the top buttons from her shirt in the process, just to check what colour her dirty blood was, there was no going back.

He was one of them now.

Snape was so engulfed in his own grief that he didn't hear the door creak open.

He did notice when the first potion bottle smashed, though.

"Hi, Severus" Dorcas' voice was soft as she absentmindedly drew her wand in a line, sending bottles and cauldrons crashing to the floor. "Been up to anything fun this evening?"

"Can't help but notice that your robes are a bit bloody, mate" he hadn't heard Marlene approach him, and her wand was on his neck before he could move. "Just at the bottom there. Mind if I see your shoes?"

"_Accio wand_" Alice hissed. His prized possession flew into her waiting hand. They all knew that he could cast dangerous non-verbal spells, but with three against one, and one of those three being Dorcas, the girls were feeling good about their odds.

"Explain something to me" Dorcas was on the other side of the desk to him now. "How did it feel, hitting a girl when she was completely unconscious?"

"I don't know what you're talking about" he spat.

"No? Then what are the waterworks for? Bad news from home?" Dorcas asked sarcastically, perching on the desk in front of him.

"Bet it must have been nice" Marlene picked up the thread "having her just how you wanted her for a change. Didn't knock one out while you were there, did you?"

"What happened to her shirt, Severus?" Dorcas continued, locking eyes with him. He felt his body start to rise from the floor, completely against his will. "It had three buttons missing and was ripped to pieces. Did you do that to her?"

She wasn't breaking eye contact, and, as he continued to rise above their heads, he was trying desperately to think of the counterspell, but his mind was filled with the image of Lily, her white school shirt torn and blushing with her own blood.

"Please, I-" he tried to get the words out, but they weren't coming "I didn't know…"

"So you weren't there?" Marlene questioned, reaching out to touch the bottom of his robes. When she looked down, the tips of her fingers were stained scarlet. "Because this doesn't look great for you, Severus."

"I didn't think she'd get hurt" he was whimpering now, he could feel his throat constricting, and he didn't doubt that Marlene was choking him as Dorcas held him up. They'd always been a formidable double act. "Please know that."

"Bit late to beg now" Alice piped up from her place in the doorway.

"So Lily just means nothing to you?" Dorcas was looking for clarity as she threw Snape against the cauldrons on the top shelf. They crashed to the floor and she heard his gasping deepen. She could see Marlene's eyes clouding over, and she reached over to lay a hand on her forearm. They weren't done with him yet, and they needed him conscious for what came next.

"Funny thing, isn't it? Because she cares about you, even though you're the shittiest person to ever exist" Marlene added, releasing the grip on his windpipe. "That's the only reason you could get her, isn't it? Because she'd speak to you? And then those cowards jumped? Pretty basic, if you ask me."

"Not to mention spineless, but I suppose that's to be expected of your kind, isn't it?" Dorcas experimented with drifting the bottom of his robes towards the lanterns in the room. He cursed as he felt the flames lick the leather of his shoes, daring to sink a little lower.

"But even Slytherins don't work alone" Marlene pointed out "who else was there with you? We'd like to talk to them too."

He choked out a bitter laugh. "You'd lose."

"Would we, or would you, for ratting them out?"

He didn't have an answer for that.

"And to think, all this because the boys put a stupid potion in your pumpkin juice at dinner" Marlene sighed, tightening her grip once more as Dorcas collapsed a line of bottles above his head, causing them to smash and shower him with glass. "Imagine being so entitled that you think the only way to get your own back is to attack the Head Girl? A girl you grew up with, a girl you've _kissed_, Severus! A girl you love. You're pathetic."

"I'm bored now" Dorcas admitted "so here's what's going to happen. You're going to give us the names of the other people involved tonight and you will _never_ speak to Lily again."

"Or else?"

"Or we'll kill you." Marlene said it quietly. "It's really as simple as that, Severus. Nobody would miss you. You're nothing to anyone."

He'd been scared of that emptiness his whole life. But just look at the things he'd done to the only person who had ever made him feel like he was truly someone.

"I'll tell Dumbledore you're threatening me" he hissed, swinging his legs as he attempted to catch one of the lanterns and steady himself.

"And why would he believe you?" Dorcas smiled. "When you've just seriously assaulted the Head Girl on school grounds? He doesn't have any reason to trust you."

Marlene flashed her brilliant white teeth, they glinted in the flicking lights like the open mouth of a shark, "and we're model students."

"You can't get me to talk."

The three girls laughed.

"Oh, Severus" Alice said, shaking her head and closing the door. "You really shouldn't have said that." 

* * *

They weren't getting what they wanted. They'd tried almost every hex they could think of, and, even as Severus Snape lay on the floor, spitting blood into the stonework, they were still missing one name.

"Who was the leader, Severus?" Alice asked, getting increasingly angry.

One eye swelling shut, he continued to shake his greasy hair, signalling that he wasn't giving them up.

"It has to have been Dolohov" Dorcas breathed in Marlene's ear "I'm sure of it."

Marlene nodded gravely. "Only one way to get it out, then."

Dorcas' face changed "you're not serious?"

The blonde shrugged. "Someone has to do it."

"Mar, you'll be expelled. You'll be sent to Azkaban, for fuck's sakes."

Marlene smiled grimly. "It will be worth it if Lily can get justice. Besides, she'll be waking up soon, and I don't want her to be alone when she does."

Dorcas shook her head "Mar, you can't."

"Watch me." 

* * *

Sirius and Remus had abandoned Peter and James in the Hospital Wing. After an intense discussion in the Astronomy Tower, they'd decided to follow their initial instincts, with Remus stopping off at the dormitory to pick up the map first, so that they'd know where to go to find the boy they wanted to talk to.

"Looks like the girls have gotten to him first" Remus remarked, showing Sirius the map.

Sirius had grinned, despite himself. "Leave it five minutes, let them have some fun, and we'll join them."

Peter had been asked to stay with the two Hufflepuffs, who were still clearly shaken up by the ordeal of finding Lily. James, confused at finding the Head Girl's bedside empty, had plonked himself down in the chair and prepared himself for the Sleeping Draught to wear off. He was quite sure that he wouldn't be the first person she wanted to see when she woke up, but he didn't want her to be alone.

Now the remaining two Marauders were slipping their way down the dungeon stairs, Remus casting a quick _alohomora_ onto the door they needed.

"Evening, ladies. Can we join the party?" Sirius smirked, bowling into the room and allowing Remus to close the door behind them.

"Not now, Black" Marlene's voice was poisonous.

Sirius frowned. He could feel the rage radiating off of the three witches, but something felt…darker than he expected. He wasn't sure what was going on in this room, but judging but the mess that Snivellus was in, the girls were dealing in tit-for-tat.

Turning her back on her Quidditch partner, Marlene let out a deep sigh. "Severus, I don't want to do this" she said plainly "but we need the final name, and so I don't have a choice. Do you understand?"

His eyes were wide. He knew where this was going.

"Mar, don't." Dorcas tried again, but she was silenced by her best friend raising her hand. Marlene McKinnon had gone to another place entirely, she could feel it.

Sirius didn't trust the sound of Marlene's voice, and took a few steps towards her. She kept her back turned to him. There was no-one else in the room for her now, it was between her and the snake on the floor.

Marlene raised her wand, took a deep breath, and screamed it: "_cru-_"

She couldn't finish the Unforgiveable, as a fist jammed itself into her open mouth. She screamed louder this time, not even forming words.

"Mar, you can't take it back once you've said it" Sirius' voice was quiet in her ear. She could feel his breath on the back of her neck, and she bit down on his fist in an attempt to eschew him, but it wasn't going to work. "You can't take it back" he repeated it, over and over, as Alice cast a quick _petrificus totalus_ on Snape. The Slytherin's eyes remained fixed on Marlene, as if he was waiting for it – the outcome of the inevitable pain he'd been feeling all evening. They both knew it was the punishment he deserved.

Remus worked quickly, cleaning up the room with a few flicks of his wand. "We need to go, now" the Prefect said hurriedly. "Padfoot, can you?"

"I'm sorry, Mar" Sirius whispered. She felt his wand in the small of her back as he cast _immobulus_ and threw her over his shoulder.

"He deserved it" Dorcas said to Remus as they made their way up the stairs, Alice and Sirius (and an incapacitated Marlene) following behind them.

"Are you trying to convince yourself, or me?"

Dorcas was quiet. "She really scared me in there."

Remus nodded. "Would you have done it? If it had been her?"

"Yes" her answer was instant "but doesn't that make us just as bad as them?"

"I think it's a bit more complicated than any of us understand" Remus admitted. "But now you need to go and see Lily. Be there when she wakes up. Sirius will take Marlene back to our dorm. I think she probably needs a bit of help tonight."

That was one thing that they could all agree on. 

* * *

Marlene's mouth was dry and her heart was pounding. "I don't know how you can bear to be in the same room as me" she forced out, turning to face the boy next to her.

They were sat on Sirius' bed. He'd been holding her hand since he'd lifted the immobilising charm, stroking small soothing circles with the pad of his thumb.

He shrugged in response to her statement. "Easy. You're still you."

She shook her head in protest. "Am I?" she asked "aren't I just as bad as him? Worse?" She didn't wait for Sirius to answer. "I was ready to use an Unforgiveable on him. I would have ripped the dungeon apart."

"You would have torn the whole castle to bits" Sirius corrected her, giving her hand a squeeze. "It's that pain-in-the-arse determination that everyone loves about you."

"Not when I'm like that."

"No" he agreed "not like that. But, the thing is, most people would have done the same. They'd at least think about it, wouldn't they? If someone hurt James, Remus, Peter, any of you…I'd destroy them."

Marlene let out a brittle laugh. "Maybe we're the mad ones."

Sirius considered the possibility "well, you did bite me."

He took a deep breath before continuing to articulate the mess of thoughts in his head: "None of this is split into black and white, Mar, not really. There's no clear cut with most normal people and good and evil – it's just hurt people hurting other people, and the cycle continues until everyone snaps. That's what war is."

Marlene sighed heavily, feeling her bones creak as she propelled out the last of the evening's energy. "What in Merlin's name am I going to tell Lily?"

"The truth" Sirius said simply "you always do."

"She's going to be furious" Marlene lamented, flopping back on the mattress.

"If you could let me know when you're planning on telling her, I'll get the popcorn in and plop myself in the front row" Sirius smirked, expertly cracking the tension in the room "I haven't seen a good catfight since Alyssa Rowe and Penny Garcia."

Marlene snorted. "You only liked that fight because it was about you."

"I don't know" he rested his head next to hers "you had to give Penny points for using a gravy boat in battle."

"Alyssa catapulting stuffing balls was a treat for everyone involved" the blonde reminded him. No-one had been safe once she'd lost control of the catapulting charm and, naturally, the Marauders had orchestrated an epic food fight to accompany the screaming. Marlene had spent three days trying to shampoo the mint sauce out of her hair.

"It's tough when you're irresistible" Sirius remarked, earning a punch on the arm from the girl beside him. "What? It's true – you should know."

"You're such a charmer, Black" Marlene drawled, propelling herself into an upright position once more. "I should go to the Hospital Wing. She's probably awake by now."

Sirius put his hand on her arm. "Not tonight, Mar. Leave it to Doe and Alice. James and Pete will take the night shift. You need some sleep. And a nightcap."

Marlene knew better than to argue with Sirius Orion Black. For as stubborn as she was, he was worse and, as he pulled a bottle of Firewhisky from the trunk at the end of his bed, she wondered what she'd do without friends like these.

In a twisted way, she was lucky to have friends that she wanted to kill for. Maybe that was what war was really all about.

"You're staying here, tonight aren't you?" he checked, passing her the bottle, having taken a sharp swig himself.

She hadn't considered any other option.

Her Quidditch partner threw her a baggy t-shirt and some loose Quidditch shorts. "Sleep tight, McKinnon."

And just like that, she was out like a light. 

* * *

Lily Evans had woken drenched in sweat and gasping, as if she was being pulled from the other side of a nightmare.

Except she wasn't. She was, however, in the Hospital Wing.

"What the-"

"Merlin's tits, you're awake!" Dorcas exclaimed from the chair closest to her. She looked terrible, like she'd been crying for hours. "Lily, how are you feeling?"

The Head Girl tried to push herself up in bed, but found that she could barely move her arms. Looking down, she could see that her chest was wrapped in bandages, and panic clogged her throat. "Doe, what-"

And then it hit her like a hammer.

Snape, Dolohov, _mudblood_, that debilitating blow of red light.

She wasn't aware that she was crying until Alice appeared to her left, leaning in over the bed to wipe the tears from her cheeks. "You beautiful, brave girl, Lily Evans" she muttered. "Do you remember much?"

Lily didn't trust herself to speak more than one word: "Severus…"

"Yes" was all Dorcas allowed herself to say in return. "We've had a word with him this evening. Mar's still…decompressing."

"Ah, Miss Evans!" Madame Pomfrey exclaimed. "Glad to see you're awake. Shall we have a little chat, my love? I'm sure this is all a bit discombobulating. I think Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore will want to grab a word before you doze off again, but we'll make sure they don't keep you too long." The matron shot a pointed look at the two Gryffindor girls around the bed "some privacy, please."

Madame Pomfrey drew the curtains around Lily's bed with a swish of her wand and cast _silencio_ around them. This conversation was for caregiver and patient only.

"I'm very sorry that you're here, Miss Evans" the nurse said softly "this is getting out of control. How much do you remember and, more importantly, how much do you want to know?"

Lily was silent, unsure of how to respond. What was she going to say to Madame Pomfrey, to McGonagall, to Dumbledore?

Severus' face was playing on a loop in her mind. She couldn't shake him.

"I was in the hallway outside the office" Lily said slowly, pausing to wet her nervous mouth, "and someone said something about a mudblood…I saw…I saw red light and then I must have been knocked out. I suppose I…was I attacked?"

Madame Pomfrey nodded. Her face wasn't giving anything away. "You haven't answered my second question" she pressed the Head Girl. "How much do you want to know?"

"All of it" Lily replied.

She needed to know what he had done.

She had to hear it.

Lily wasn't sure how much time passed as Madame Pomfrey, holding one of her hands the whole time, calmly explained the injuries that she had suffered that evening. From pinpricks across her body, to slurs carved into her chest, into her thighs. The crowning jewels of a broken nose, an accompanying black eye, and two fractured ribs.

"I want to be very clear, Lily" Madame Pomfrey said softly "regardless of the fact that you were unconscious, what has been done to you is incomprehensible. You might find yourself having nightmares, flashbacks, and panic attacks. I want to stress that this is all completely normal and you mustn't be ashamed or embarrassed by anything you feel about this. It was an attack by cowards, Miss Evans, and no-one deserves to be treated that way.

"Thankfully, there's no lasting physical damage. Your ribs need rest, but should be fine in a few days after one of my infamous maladies has finished brewing. The words have been scrubbed – they were on with an illusion spell, so it looked like you'd been physically cut into when you hadn't. Your clothing was ripped, but I don't believe that anyone…took advantage of that situation."

Lily was going to be sick, she was sure of it. Her teeth were chattering against her will, as if she'd been dunked into an ice bath, they gnashed along to the beat of his name in her head: _Sev-Sev-Severus-Sev-Sev-Sev…_

How much had he known?

"Thank you for being honest with me" she murmured. "Can I see Professor Dumbledore now? I'd like to get some sleep soon."

Madame Pomfrey lifted the protection of their private bubble. "We'll keep you in until the weekend, Miss Evans" she reiterated. "I'll be back shortly with some Pepper Up for your shock, and a strong dose of Sleeping Draught."

The nurse passed by Professor Dumbledore on his way through the stark white curtains. His hand raised, as if to knock on the frame. "Miss Evans, may I?" he asked.

Lily pulled her bedsheet under her chin, suddenly very aware of the fact that she was only really wearing bandages. "Of course, Professor."

He settled a jar of Raspberry Bonbons on the small table beside her. "I seem to recall that these are your favourite" he said with a tight smile "and I believe they are excellent in any form of recovery. Providing, of course, that Mr Potter doesn't eat them first."

"Potter?" Lily frowned.

"Ah, yes. I believe he's taking the night shift, as it were. Much to Madame Pomfrey's chagrin, of course."

Dumbledore leaned back in the chair, slipping his glasses from his nose and cleaning them with the sleeves of his purple and orange robes. "Miss Evans" his tone had shifted to serious, as if he was about to give Lily her own start-of-year speech "I am incredibly sorry that this evening has transpired the way it has. For students within Hogwarts to attack Muggleborns…it is unforgiveable."

"I want you to think very carefully, Miss Evans, about what happened this evening. Anything you can recall, I would urge you to share it with me at the earliest opportunity. These students are an undeniable danger to others in Hogwarts. If they dare to attack the Head Girl, they know no bounds, and I intend to expel anyone involved for the safety of all who seek sanctuary here."

"Of course" he stuck his tongue out as he tackled a particularly grimy bit of his lenses "inevitable vigilantism will follow, in fact, I believe it already has this evening, but I'll let Miss McKinnon tell you that tale when she sees fit. I will not let my school become a battleground, Miss Evans, and I hope that you understand that."

He continued rolling his half-moon glasses between the two folds of his sleeve. "With that in mind, is there anything you would like to share with me?"

Lily fidgeted with the corner of her bedsheet, weighing up her options. She knew that Dumbledore was no fool, and she didn't doubt he had more information about the evening's goings-on than she ever would.

"I think Dolohov was one of the students" she admitted "but I can't be sure. It happened so quickly."

"No-one else?" Dumbledore popped his spectacles back onto the end of his nose and peered over at her.

She shook her head, praying that she was imagining the blush on her cheeks. "Not that I can say with any certainty, Sir."

He nodded slowly. "Very well, Miss Evans. Please rest and, if you remember anything over the coming days, it's never too late to tell myself of Professor McGonagall. Of course" he paused "some people are caught up in a tide of hatred. Some we can save, some we cannot."

"Mr Potter!" he called out, signalling the end of Lily's time with the Headmaster. "I believe your turn for lookout has come" he rolled his eyes at the Head Girl good-naturedly. "Rest, Lily. I've no doubt I shall see you soon."

"Evening, Evans" Potter grinned, acting as if they'd bumped into each other in the street. He pulled a deck of cards from his back pocket. "Don't fancy a game of Exploding Snap, do ya?"

Thankfully, Madame Pomfrey took that as her cue to return with an immense Sleeping Draught.

"You can go, you know" Lily told him, taking her first sip. "I'll be fine."

He shrugged, popping a bonbon into his mouth. "I'd like to stay, if that's okay."

She was fast asleep before she could give him an answer.

He stayed until the bell rang for Transfiguration the next morning. He didn't close his eyes once. 


	8. The Consequence (October 1977)

Marlene McKinnon could say, without a hint of uncertainty, that if she'd been in possession of a Time Turner, her week would have gone very differently indeed.

As it was, she was lacing up her boots for the first Quidditch game of the season, and trying not to vomit over herself.

It was a Saturday, a week and a half since Lily had been attacked, and everything had turned upside down at Hogwarts.

Marlene's stomach had been stuck in a knot ever since.

She hadn't been at breakfast in the Great Hall the morning after, instead opting to go to the Hospital Wing and relieve James of his duties.

It was clear that the poor bloke hadn't slept all night, and he'd been playing a game of Solitaire with an Exploding Snap deck when she made her appearance. He turned to smile at her, and the deck took its cue to detonate into a pile of ash, waking half the Hospital Wing and forcing the Head Boy to make his way to Transfiguration before Madame Pomfrey banned him from the facility for life.

Marlene was told later that Dumbledore had made a speech at breakfast, that he'd made it perfectly clear that anyone involved in the incident, or anything linked, would be expelled. That Hogwarts was a safe place and this war wouldn't wage inside his castle.

She could only imagine how everyone in the hall must have rolled their eyes at that. Dumbledore was a great wizard, a good man, but there was no way to keep the war from spreading into the castle. It was a virus and it had been infecting them all for a long time. In some ways, they all knew that the Head Girl being attacked was only the beginning.

Meanwhile, Marlene had brushed the remnants of James' card deck out of Lily's hair, and the two Gryffindor girls had clutched hands, their knuckles white, to speak in hushed tones as they recapped the events of the night before. Neither of them could stop crying and, when Lily explained the full extent of her injuries and when her voice had wobbled, explaining that her clothes had been ripped and _what if-?_, Marlene had half a mind to go and find Snape for round two.

Lily was silent as Marlene revealed what the girls had done in the dungeon – what she had almost done – nodding her head every now and again to urge her friend to continue with the story. When Marlene had muttered the word _Cruciatus_, she could see her friend's eyes well up again, but she pushed through. She needed to know.

"I understand if you don't want us to be friends anymore" Marlene finished, barely daring to look at the redhead. "I don't think I would want to be mates with me right now, either."

Lily shook her head, biting back fresh tears that threatened to roll down her face: "are you mad? Of course we're still friends, Mar, I just…"

She didn't have to finish her sentence. They both knew that last night had been complicated in every sense and both the girls, who usually had such clear morals, felt lost.

"What are you going to do?" Marlene asked "about Snape?"

"I don't know" Lily admitted quietly "I…I just can't imagine him hurting anybody, you know?"

"He had your blood on his robes last night, Lil. He was standing close enough to be in the action, if nothing else."

A huge sigh propelled itself from the Head Girl's lips. "I know. It's just hard to put it all together, isn't it? Is he doing it because he truly believes it, or is it because he's in with the wrong crowd? I don't know how I can help him."

Marlene had to take a few seconds to compose herself before answering, otherwise she knew she'd go the same way as the Exploding Snap deck. "Lily" she squeezed her friend's hands "he is his own person and, right this second, he is past help."

Seeing the crestfallen look on her kind friend's face, she continued: "He made a choice and, after last night, he will need to decide whether or not he wants to continue on that path. I think he probably will and you need to stay out of his way. Lily, he's dangerous and he could've killed you. You've done so well at keeping away from him, and you can't go to him for answers now. He's not the person you knew, not anymore."

Lily didn't trust herself to speak, so just nodded mutely.

"I need you to know that I'm going to see Dumbledore in a minute and I'm going to tell him everything that I did last night. Just me, not Doe or Alice. Lil, that means I'm going to give him the full list of names. Do you understand?"

"Mar, please-"

Marlene shook her head. "I'm sorry, Lil. This is bigger than you now. If he hurt someone else, or worse, you wouldn't be able to live with yourself. We both know that."

"And what will happen to you?"

Marlene shrugged, trying and failing to ignore the terror gnashing at her stomach lining. "I really don't know. I probably deserve to be expelled. We'll see."

"I would've done it for you, too" Lily assured her, giving her friend's hand one last comforting squeeze.

"I know" Marlene smiled weakly "that's the complicated part, isn't it?" 

* * *

Marlene's stomach had dropped to the balls of her feet by the time she was stood in front of their Headmaster's desk. She'd been here more times than she could count – usually for something she'd uncovered for the Herald, or someone's high-society father threatening to sue the school for defamation after a particularly controversial article.

Dumbledore had always had Marlene's back, and now it was time for her to stick to her end of the bargain: complete honesty.

She accepted a sherbet lemon from Dumbledore's outstretched hand and, at his request, took a seat. She gave a small wave to Fawkes, who was cooing peculiarly, and looking a bit worse for wear.

"How long does he have this time?" Marlene nodded at the phoenix.

"If you're lucky, Miss McKinnon, Fawkes may give you a display during this very meeting. He always has been partial to over-dramatics" Dumbledore smiled, popping his own boiled sweet into his mouth. "One assumes that you are here to discuss the events of last night?"

"Yes, Professor" Marlene rolled the wrapped sweet between her forefinger and thumb, trying to quell the rising panic in her throat. "I have the names of all four Slytherins involved."

"Investigative journalism at its finest again, Marlene?"

"No, Sir" she sat on her hands to stop them from shaking. "I tortured them out of Severus Snape last night in the dungeons. I stopped short of using the Cruciatus curse on him."

Professor Dumbledore frowned, continuing to suck on his hardboiled sweet. He motioned for her to continue.

"I know it's wrong, Professor" Marlene continued, her voice shaking "and I didn't ever think I'd get to the point of using an Unforgiveable, but I was just…Merlin, I was so _angry_."

"I knew that Snape would have had something to do with it, or would have at least known about it, so I took a guess that he was in the Potion dungeons. I went there and cast almost every spell I could think of to get him to tell me the names. Then I cleaned up the damage and immobilised him when I'd gotten almost every name I wanted. The only one missing was Dolohov, which I got from Lily this morning."

Her Headmaster winced and Marlene couldn't tell if it was from the sharpness of the sherbet or if he was just that disappointed in her. Probably both.

"The four involved were Snape, Dolohov, Avery and Nott. I don't know what punishment you'll have for them, or for me, but I needed to tell you before they hurt any other muggleborns."

"Violence isn't ever noble, Miss McKinnon" Professor Dumbledore said sternly, finishing the sherbet with a crunch "and I find it incredibly difficult to believe you acted alone."

"I did, Professor" Marlene insisted "you can check my wand, I can give you a list of the spells that will be on there. And I'm sure Snape will give you an account that matches mine."

Dumbledore was silent for a few minutes, and Marlene felt the pit of dread in her stomach widen, until it was gaping with a thousand horrible possibilities. What would happen if Dumbledore expelled her? What would her parents say? Would Doe and Alice be okay?

"You understand that this cannot go unpunished, Miss McKinnon" Dumbledore said carefully.

"I do" Marlene sounded a lot braver than she felt.

Dumbledore cleared his throat. "I will speak to Mr Snape today and, as Mr Dolohov was named in Miss Evans' recollection last night, he has been expelled. Should Mr Snape's account match yours, we will look at your punishment once more. Do you understand?"

Marlene nodded.

"As it is, Miss McKinnon, I cannot have you in a position of responsibility when you have put another student's wellbeing at risk, regardless of his alleged involvement in the attack on Miss Evans. You will step down as editor of the Herald, effective immediately, and you will have nothing further to do with the paper until I see fit."

Marlene made a noise that she was certain only Fawkes could hear.

Dumbledore continued, undeterred: "you will be banned from Hogsmeade visits, I will be sending a letter home to your parents, and you are banned from leaving the castle outside of Quidditch practice. Naturally, you will serve detention every week day until the year is out and if you are found to break any rules again, Miss McKinnon, no matter how slight, I will not hesitate to expel you."

"Y-y-you're not expelling me?" Marlene stuttered.

Dumbledore fixed her with a piercing stare. "That will all depend, Miss McKinnon, on what Mr Snape has to say in your defence. I cannot ignore the fact that you are admitting to seriously injuring another student within the castle, regardless of how virtuous you think your motive appeared to be."

Marlene nodded. "Thank you, Professor" she said hollowly, rising to her feet. "Is there anything else?"

He shook his head. "I do not think there is anything I can say to help you now, Miss McKinnon."

Marlene had vomited in front of the gargoyle immediately after leaving the office.

It had just gotten worse throughout the day. She'd explained everything to the boys, Doe and Alice at lunch – it had taken all of the Marauders to pounce on Doe and stop her from handing herself in to Dumbledore at the top table there and then.

"You can't take the blame for all of this" Dorcas had insisted, choking back tears. "Snape's going to sell us all out anyway."

Marlene shook her head. "None of you will ever get into jobs with the Ministry with something like this on your record" she reiterated "I need you to trust me, and I need you to let me take this one."

"But…the paper" Alice said weakly "what are they going to do without you?"

Marlene had already cornered Colin Kirksby outside Greenhouse Five after her meeting with Dumbledore. She'd told him, in hushed tones, that she wouldn't be returning to the Herald for a while. That he was the calmest member of staff, had the best all-round skills, and was the only one who could make the blasted printing presses work – she needed him to take her place.

"Marlene, I don't want to be editor" he'd insisted "you're brilliant – please, can we all go and talk to Dumbledore? I'm sure whatever's happened is just a misunderstanding."

She'd smiled and assured him that there was no confusion. That he'd be a wonderful editor and, if he had any questions, he could always come and find her.

It had been the hardest conversation she'd had that day. More difficult than telling Dumbledore by a mile. Everything she'd worked for, her potential future at the Daily Prophet, had gone up in smoke.

"Well" James cleared his throat at the lunch table, bringing them all back to reality "at least Dolohov's gone. That's a small mercy."

The rest of the table didn't disagree. 

* * *

Lily looked up from her Transfiguration homework later that evening to see James Potter hovering at her bedside.

"You're the only person I know who wouldn't let hospitalisation get in the way of schoolwork" the Head Boy smiled. "May I…?" he gestured to the chair next to her.

Despite herself, Lily smiled back. "It's been so boring in here all day" she admitted "I needed something to get my brain going."

More importantly, she'd needed something to stop her from thinking about Severus constantly, but she wasn't about to admit that to James.

"Has Mar been to see you this afternoon?"

Lily nodded. "Yes, she told me what Dumbledore said."

James' expression was strained "and are you okay?"

"The Pepper Up Potion is working wonders" Lily assured him dryly.

James fidgeted with a book in his hands. "I just wanted to…" he paused to correct himself "I needed to apologise. You were right about the prank and the impact it would have. I shouldn't have left you last night. I'm so sorry, Lily."

The redhead shrugged. "I'd rather it had been me than anyone else, given the circumstances."

"Don't say that" James pleaded "please don't say that."

"It's the truth" Lily insisted. "I'm not thrilled that it happened at all, but at least I know that I have the right people around me to help me handle it. I'm not going to be scared into submission by a bunch of Death Eater wannabes, Potter. Even you don't have that sort of influence."

Despite himself, he cracked a small smile. "You think I'm influential?"

"A regular trend-setter" Lily snarked. She softened: "thank you for coming to apologise. I know you need to hear me say that."

"We're going to do things the right way from now on" James was insistent "we set up the support centre again this afternoon, and we'll keep it running for as long as we need to."

"Good."

James nodded "I know you're, um, bedbound, but I wondered if you wanted to go through some Heads' stuff this evening? I didn't want you to feel left out just because you're in the Hospital Wing."

Lily realised why the book in his hands looked familiar. "You've brought the bloody decorations for the Ball with you, haven't you?"

"In my defence, I wasn't sure where you'd gotten to with them last night. And we also need to talk about the new Slytherin prefect."

Lily placed her Transfiguration homework onto the side table and outstretched her hands expectedly. "If I have to see any more enchanted snowflakes between tonight and the Ball I might just murder you, Potter" she warned, flicking through the examples she'd been halfway through the evening before.

"Look, I'm just trying to make sure that all of the gross couples get a chance to snog under some fake snow, alright?"

"That's a very specific fantasy" Lily remarked "and I thought we were making gross couples mandatory for the Ball, anyway?"

James shrugged. "You can only be part of a gross couple with the right person, Evans, anyone else is just a date."

Lily snorted "and you're one of the most eligible bachelors in school? God help us all. It's a no to these weird dancing elves, by the way."

"But Evans-"

"No."

James stayed silent, making meticulous notes on the Head Girl's choices as she went through the book. Finally satisfied, she closed it with a small smile and handed it back to him.

"Thanks, Lily. I'll leave you alone soon, but-"

"I don't mind the company" Lily interjected. "It's been a long day."

James nodded "one more bit of business, and then I'm happy to treat you to a game of Exploding Snap."

"The Slytherin Prefect?"

"Yes. I know we can't pick Prefects, but the Code of Conduct says we can make recommendations to the Head of House. Seeing as you're so close with Slughorn, I was thinking we could put in a good word for-"

"Regulus?"

Lily's tone didn't give away any feeling, and James nodded half-sheepishly. "I just thought…he's a good kid, deep down, and if we could give him a chance to get away from the other Slytherins by giving him Prefect duties…"

"Like Dolohov?"

James sighed. "I know. Maybe it's just wishful thinking."

Lily shook her head "I don't think so. He's got good grades, hasn't he? I don't think I've heard much bad said about him by any teachers, so if Slughorn agrees, this could be exactly the right time to make a difference. Especially now that Dolohov's gone."

"Here's hoping."

"Okay" Lily considered it. "Go and get Slughorn for me? He should be in his office, and he won't be able to say no to me when I'm in a hospital bed, especially considering at least one member of his house put me in it."

James' face lit up. "Lily Evans" he breathed "you are…I mean, you're incorrigible."

She raised an eyebrow. "You don't get to the top without knowing how to play the game, James. Maybe we can revisit Exploding Snap tomorrow?"

"I'd like that" he smiled. "Can I get you anything in the meantime? Chocolate cake? Butterbeer? Something from the Restricted section of the library for light reading?"

"I don't want to know how you would get any of those things" Lily was quick to point out. "But I wouldn't say no to another tin of raspberry bonbons" she looked at him pointedly "mine seem to have disappeared overnight."

"I've heard they're Poppy's favourite" James winked, feeling the top of his ears flame. "But I'll see what I can do."

"Much appreciated" Lily smiled sweetly, not fooled by him for a second, "now let's get Regulus a badge."

Just when James Potter thought he couldn't be any more enchanted by Lily Evans, she managed to tie him up in knots and leave him speechless. If he was going to keep his promise and not fancy her ever again, it was going to be a very long year indeed… 

* * *

Since then, everything had been a blur.

Sirius had lost his mind the following morning at breakfast when he'd spotted a shiny new badge on his brother's robes. James had bitten his smile back and laid a reassuring hand on his best mate's shoulder, repeating that it was for the best.

James and Lily had been spending every evening before dinner, and the Head Boy's never-ending detention, getting increasingly violent with their games of Exploding Snap. When she'd left the Hospital Wing that weekend, she'd waited up for him to come in from Quidditch practice, before teaching him a muggle card game called Rummy. He'd been completely perplexed when the cards hadn't threatened to explode at any point.

Lily had been flanked, much to her annoyance, by her own personal bodyguards in fellow Gryffindors between lessons, at mealtimes, and even in the library (once by Sirius, which had been a thoroughly confusing experience for everyone involved). No matter how many times she threatened to hex her friends, they wouldn't listen, and kept their wands up the sleeves of their robes. Just in case.

Everyone had been chipping in with slots at the support centre.

Marlene had found herself walking past the Herald offices at every given opportunity, feeling the sickness in her stomach worsen at the chug and splutter of the printing press and the excitable murmuring from within.

And still, she hadn't heard anything from Dumbledore and Severus Snape was walking around the school like a free man.

Her head wasn't in the game and, right now, it needed to be.

"McKinnon, are you coming?" Penny Garcia, one of the Gryffindor Chasers asked from the doorway, her face expectant.

She couldn't mess this up, too.

"Ready" Marlene smiled, tightening the straps on her gloves.

She picked up her bat, which had been resting between her ankles, and made her way into the corridor with the rest of the team, taking her place beside Sirius, who shot her a knowing smirk.

It was time to get some anger out and win the first Quidditch match of the season.


	9. The First Match of the Season (Oct 1977)

"Okay" Marlene's mouth was at Sirius' earlobe. They were waiting for James to begin his rousing pre-match speech, and had just moments to go over their strategy before the match. "Coutts, MacMillan and Drogger are who we're aiming for today. Coutts moves fast but-"

"If we aim in front of her, it'll be enough to throw her off course" Sirius summarised. "See how much you can flirt with MacMillan to throw his game and we can both keep an eye on Drogger. You stay low, I'll head higher. Deal?"

They knocked the top of their Beaters bats together in quick agreement. The entire team started to shuffle nervously as James took his place at the head of the pack, clearing his throat quickly. Outside, the roar of the crowd was starting to permeate their bubble, and they could hear the familiar stamping tune of _'go, go, Gryffindor'_ from the stands.

"I'm not going to say much" James promised, earning a cheer from his fellow Chasers, Penny Garcia and Ellie Ponds, "thank you for training so hard for this over the past few weeks. I know it's been tough, but we're in great shape and, more importantly, we're ready to absolutely flatten our friends in Hufflepuff!"

After the enthusiastic whoops from his team died down, James raised his hands once more: "remember we've planned this as much as we can. Keep an eye on Coutts – she's new and she's quick, we don't know what her moves will be yet, obviously protecting Ben so that we can get the Snitch is the priority. Let's keep it clean and win fair and square. Don't be afraid to take calculated risks, but I don't want anyone ending up in the Hospital Wing. This is our year, Gryffindors, now let's fucking smash it!"

This, James reflected, was always his favourite part. The team mounted their brooms and took off, exploding like fireworks through the entrance, one by one. It gave everyone their moment in the spotlight and the screams from the crowd were to die for. Even Minnie was dressed to the nines in Gryffindor garb, and clapping enthusiastically from the teachers' stand.

As the Gryffindors got into formation, they leaned back on their broomsticks to clap the arrival of their opponents. James had always insisted that they do this with every team they played against – even Slytherin – they could leave their politics offside the pitch, even if just for a moment, and welcome them to the field.

At the very least, it had really confused Slytherin the first year they'd done it, and the biting smiles of his team members had thrown the snakes into such a frenzy that Gryffindor had swept away with the match by a whopping 300 points.

Bert MacMillan was opposite James before he knew it, and the pair grinned at each other. They'd always had an easy friendship and, on the Quidditch pitch, it barely dissipated, leaving the two Captains to rip the piss out of each other at every possible opportunity.

"Wearing yer lucky boxers today, Potter?" The Hufflepuff teased, holding out his hand for James to shake.

"Not wearing any pants, mate" James replied, deadpan, shaking hands "when we win I'm going to do a moony on my victory lap."

Bert snorted "I wouldn't put it past you."

"Know who else isn't wearing any knickers today?" James beamed "McKinnon. Saving herself for you, apparently."

Bert bit his tongue. "Feck off, Potter."

The Hufflepuff Captain turned to wave at Marlene all the same. She blew him a kiss in return, and James detected a faint blush at the tips of Bert's ears.

_Perfect._

Madame Hooch ascended, interrupting their banter. "Captains" she boomed, sounding every inch the oracle of Quidditch "a good game for the first of the season, please."

James and Bert both bowed their heads respectfully. "Yes, Ma'am" they chorused, well-versed in this after years of the game.

"Players, at the ready!" she demanded.

The circle around them shifted, crackling with nervous energy.

This, the anticipation, was the second best bit of Quidditch.

Both Captains watched one another as Hooch's whistle shrilled. The Quaffle flew upwards and James snatched it, propelling himself upwards, as he relished in the yelps from the crowds.

The game had officially begun.

* * *

"And they're off!" The familiar voice of Ravenclaw fifth-year Samuel Jones echoed around the field "It's Potter with the Quaffle, passes to Ponds, setting up to take on Hufflepuff's Drogger at the hoops, but can they score this early in the match?"

The cheers that resounded from Gryffindor's stand argued that their team could, and James repaid their confidence by ricocheting the Quaffle effortlessly past the Hufflepuff Keeper.

"See?" Dorcas beamed at Lily "told you they were good!"

It wasn't that Lily hadn't been to a Quidditch match before. It was just that she wasn't overly invested in the sport and, to be honest, she understood the rules of football better. Learning the rules of a wizarding sport when you've spent your whole life surrounding by Aston Villa memorabilia just seemed pointless to first-year Lily, and it was only after constant badgering from Marlene, and James patiently explaining the rules to her over one of their late-night Exploding Snap sessions that she was going to give genuine enthusiasm for the sport a try.

She watched in wonder as Sirius struck a Bludger that had been rocketing towards him, sending it careering off in the direction of the Hufflepuff's Beater. Marlene intercepted it effortlessly and fired it at Bert MacMillan, who had just taken possession of the Quaffle.

The Quaffle and the Bludger collided, and the red ball spun out of Bert's hands and into Penny's waiting arms.

"Nice one, Mar!" Sirius hollered, dodging a second Bludger from Raquel Cruiz. The Hufflepuffs had gotten more aggressive this year after Marlene's infamous takedown of their previous Seeker the year before, and he had to admit that he was enjoying the challenge.

"It's all to play for!" the commentator reminded the crowd as the Gryffindor Chasers sank a second Quaffle past Hufflepuff's Keeper for the third time in just three minutes "but Merlin's beard, Gryffindor did not come to muck around today! Can Hufflepuff keep up? It's Gryffindor leading, thirty-nil."

The winning streak didn't last for long, and before the Gryffindors knew it, they were twenty points down.

Both teams were playing a blinding game, with players dipping and dodging and every available opportunity, the Beaters were being particularly brutal. At one point Drogger had been hanging upside down on his broom to stop the Gryffindors scoring more points, and Marlene had taken the opportunity to aim a Bludger at the tail of his broomstick, sending him spinning like a sycamore seed.

Ellie and James had been targeted by the Hufflepuff Beaters too, with a Bludger missing James' nose by a whisker, and Penny being forced to feint to avoid the ball, leaving them unable to reach the Hufflepuff's hoops.

James hovered for a few moments, taking in the scene around him. Catching Marlene's eye, he motioned towards Sirius and then at Hufflepuff's trio of Chasers, who were starting to get into the classic Hawkshead Attacking Formation.

"Anton, incoming!" the Captain yelled back at their Keeper, whistling for his two other Chasers to join him as they prepared for a head-on hit.

"Two in one?" Marlene grinned, circling around Sirius.

They both took a dive, ignoring the confused shrieks from the crowd, and intercepted a Bludger meant for Ellie. They swung at the same time with both bats, and sent the ball after their own Chasers, who pulled skyward at the last minute, sending it into Hufflepuff's contingent.

Watching the formation fold, it reminded Lily of getting a strike in bowling, and she screamed almost louder than anyone as Marlene and Sirius triumphantly looped over the house stand to watch the three Hufflepuff Chasers struggle to regain control of their brooms.

It was all the Gryffindor Chasers had needed to get another ten points, despite the howls from the Hufflepuff stand at Marlene and Sirius' dirty tactic.

"A stunning show from Black and McKinnon there" Jones hollered "the classic Doppelganger Defence, which I don't think we've seen on this pitch since 1975. Now, of course, we're just biding time until Amber Coutts or Ben Rayner spot that Snitch and close the game."

"Come on" Sirius hissed, sending a Bludger swinging at one of Hufflepuff's Beaters.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Amber Coutts dive towards the floor.

Ben followed swiftly and the whole stadium became a wall of noise. James and the Gryffindor Chasers took the opportunity to fire a final Quaffle in the hoop, much to Drogger's annoyance, before all the players followed the trail of the two Seekers.

"Coutts is moving quickly – of course this is her first game as Hufflepuff Seeker and she's definitely got the speed to do it, can she take this potential victory away from the Gryffindor team during the first match of the season?"

Marlene could feel the familiar tug of nausea at the back of her throat. This, _this_ was the worst part of Quidditch.

She spotted Sirius diving for a Bludger and she followed his lead, heading for the other ball. She felt his Bludger whistle past her on her way, and she brought her broom to a quick stop to get control of the second ball.

Marlene's ball caused Amber to serve to the left, losing touching distance of the Snitch and Sirius' Bludger landed exactly where they'd always planned it: between the Seeker and the Snitch.

Amber forced her broom upwards to avoid a collision with the Bludger, losing her precious seconds. It was all over when Ben dangled forward, barely on his broom, and closed his fist triumphantly around the Golden Snitch for the first time that season.

The crowd went wild.

"That's it!" the commentary declared "the first game of the season is over and Gryffindor wins with a whopping 270 points to Hufflepuff's 100."

After almost being tackled from his broom by his Captain, Sirius led the victory lap around the pitch which, thankfully, James kept his trousers up for.

"I don't know about you" Sirius settled into a triumphant hug with Marlene when they were both back on the ground "but I think this calls for a party."

"I could use a drink" the blonde beamed at her fellow Beater "you smashed it, Black. Well done."

He laughed "me? You were an animal out there today. We're the dream team."

"I love that you're busy licking each other's arseholes" James insisted, breaking the two apart by wrapping his arms around their shoulders "but can we _please_ get smashed now?"

How could they say no to their Captain?

* * *

"I can't believe _you_ actually enjoyed a Quidditch match" Doe repeated for the fourth time that hour as the girls started to get ready for the inevitable victory party in the Common Room.

"Is it really that surprising?" Lily asked, pulling five outfit options onto her bed.

"Yes" her three dormmates chorused in unison.

"Lil, I've been trying to get you to our games for years!" Marlene pointed out, towel-drying her long blonde locks. "What's changed?"

"Spending some time with the dishy Quidditch Captain, perhaps?" Alice teased.

"Yeah, are you two gonna shag or what?" Marlene asked, ducking as Lily threw a pillow at her head.

"I don't fancy James Potter!" Lily insisted, ignoring the fact that her cheeks were tinging pink.

"Firstly, Lil, that's a lie. Secondly, you don't have to fancy people to get your rocks off with them" Marlene pointed out.

Lily Evans simply couldn't fancy James Potter, that was the truth of it. Yes, they'd been spending more time together, and he could be kind and funny and sincere – all things she'd have thought impossible of him even a few weeks ago, he was a great Quidditch player and was becoming a good Head Boy, and of course she'd noticed the muscles in his arms and the warmth in his eyes when he got to explode a Snap deck, but she was only human and-

"Earth to Evans" Doe called from the other side of the room "are you done with daydreaming about Potter now?"

"I was not-"

"I was asking if Emmeline could come and get ready with us?" Doe shifted the weight from one foot to the other. "If that's okay?"

Lily frowned "why wouldn't it be? You're seeing each other, aren't you?"

Doe caught Marlene's eye, who just smiled. "It'll be nice to meet her properly" her best friend promised, rubbing her damp hair with Sleekeazy's.

Of all the reactions Doe cared about, Marlene knew it was hers, and she knew it would never stop being complicated. Their friendship had never been conventional, but that was a story for another time. Doe's happiness was all that mattered to Marlene, anyway.

Ten minutes later, Doe returned, hands laced with the pretty sixth-year Ravenclaw's and the girls, in various states of undress, were effusive in their introductions.

"Congratulations on the match, Marlene" Emmeline pulled a bottle of champagne from her bag "thought we could pop this to celebrate?"

"Anyone who brings a bottle is a friend of mine" Marlene said, wrapping the new girl in a hug. "It's lovely to meet you. Let's get some glasses, eh?"

"Then we can paaaaaaaaaaaarty!" Doe declared.

The five girls raised a glass to that.

If nothing else, after the past few weeks, they were going to make sure that Lily had a damn good time.

* * *

"Great game today, mate" James handed a bottle of Butterbeer to Bert MacMillan in truce. "Sorry that we pipped you to the post."

"No yer not" Bert laughed, taking a hearty swig "but good t'know that we can still keep up with ya. Reckon you ruined Amber's birthday an' all."

"It's Coutts' birthday?" Sirius smirked "remind me to apologise to her later."

"As long as your apology doesn't involve sleeping with the enemy, I'm okay with it" James told his best friend.

"Based on that logic, you won't be puttin' in a good word with McKinnon for me?" Bert grinned.

James pretended not to notice Sirius' pointed look at the Hufflepuff Captain and, thankfully, Bert didn't seem to clock it. "I don't think Marlene even knows what's going on inside her head most of the time" James said breezily "have you met Lizzie Tintwistle, by the way? Deputy Editor for the Herald, sixth-year Ravenclaw, very pretty. Reckon you'd get along."

Sirius grinned as his best mate led Bert into the party, guiding him into the corner where a few Ravenclaws were gathered.

He owed that boy a Butterbeer.

"What are you grinning at?" Remus asked, sidling up to Sirius and stealing a swig of his Butterbeer.

"Nothing" Sirius fibbed. "How's the party going for you? Have the girls bothered to make an appearance yet?"

"You can just ask where Marlene is, Padfoot, it's okay" Remus finished the last of his friend's drink and fished a bottle for each of them from the table nearby.

Sirius ignored his friend's comment and ploughed through the conversation regardless. "Please tell me you didn't leave Wormy to his own devices with that poor Hufflepuff girl."

"Don't you worry, I took him out of it when he started talking about different types of trains. Marlene and Lily saw the whole shitshow, so they're giving him advice on how to talk to women."

Sirius was dumbfounded. "Pete doesn't even like trains."

Remus nodded gravely. "I know."

"Merlin's balls" the Gryffindor Beater hissed. "Let's get this tragic party livened up, shall we?"

* * *

Marlene and Lily were deep in conversation with a stricken Pete when they heard Sirius' rambunctious demand for spin the bottle.

The two girls rolled their eyes at each other before turning to the matter at hand.

"Look Pete" Lily touched his arm "at least it seemed like you were passionate about something, but maybe next time you need to ask some questions about her? Simple stuff, like what does she like to do in her spare time? What's her favourite subject? Does she have a favourite Quidditch team?"

Pete's head was still in his hands. "It was awful" he groaned "I don't know _anything_ about trains, I just panicked. James and Sirius, even Remus, they're so good at this stuff! I'm just rubbish."

"Nonsense, Pete" Marlene nudged him with her elbow "everything takes practice, that's all. Trust me."

"Just try asking questions and listening next time" Lily advised him "then you can have a bit more time to think about your answers."

"And don't worry about whether or not you look cool" Marlene reassured him "girls can tell when you're not being genuine, so just be you. Why don't you try again with Rosie, yeah?"

Pete steeled himself, wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans. "Yeah, okay" he stood up, ruffling his hair into practiced messiness. "How do I look?"

"Perfect" Lily smiled at him. "She'd be silly to walk away from you."

With their good deed done for the evening, the two girls clinked their glasses together and winced as their cocktails burnt on the way down. After the five of them had laid waste to several bottles of champagne and a bottle of nettle wine in the dorms, Lily had been insistent on mixing a jug of Old Fashioneds with the Firewhisky from the table in the Common Room, and they'd spent the better part of the last half an hour getting more and more intoxicated.

"Ladies, how's the dating service going?" James asked, perching himself in the seat that Peter had vacated. He reached out for Marlene's drink, a nod to the familiarity between the pair, and took a quick sip: "fucking hell" he spluttered "who mixed this?"

Lily raised her hand in a guilty plea. "You don't like it?"

"I didn't think you had it in you, Evans. Are you two not going to join the festivities?" he nodded at Sirius, who had corralled most of the party around him and was regaling them with tales of legendary games of spin the bottle of times past.

"Yeah, why not" Marlene smiled. "Are you two coming?"

Lily paused, catching James' eye. "I think I'll watch from a safe distance for a bit" she admitted, unsure as to why her stomach was screaming for James to stay on the sofa with her.

Marlene got the hint and tipped an imaginary hat at the Head Boy and Girl before making her way to the circle to cheers from their other friends.

"So, I heard you made it to the match today" James smiled "how was that for you?"

"I actually had a really good time" Lily admitted. "You were all absolutely brilliant, and it was a bit better knowing some of the rules this time round…"

"It only took you seven years, Lily, we're all proud of you" James teased.

She thumped him playfully. "Don't be such a git."

"I'm not, I'm sorry. Thank you for coming. I'm just glad we didn't lose and embarrass ourselves in front of you."

Lily smiled and took another sip of her cocktail. She could feel her body temperature rising the more intently he looked at her. This wasn't good. Not at all.

"So" she smiled tightly "is there anyone you've got your eye on tonight? Now that the Evans-McKinnon dating directory is open for business, I'm sure we could fix you up with someone nice."

James sighed heavily, leaning closer to Lily as he surveyed the room. She tried to pretend that their knees weren't touching. "You know, Evans" he considered the question, taking a dramatic glug of his Butterbeer "I just don't think I'm dating material."

"Are you mad?" slipped out before she could stop it.

The Head Boy looked surprised. "What makes you think that I am?"

"Well" Lily flushed scarlet "you're Quidditch captain, Head Boy, you're one of the most popular boys in school and…" she gathered herself "you're not an awful person or bad to look at."

"Is that right?" James' voice was low, for her ears only.

She cleared her throat "but you're a terrible loser when it comes to Exploding Snap, so maybe you're not ready for compromises just yet."

"I could be better" James said coolly "for the right game of Exploding Snap."

"I know" Lily said quietly.

Their knees were still touching, and he was staring at her like she was his next meal.

"Sometimes" Lily's voice was still soft and fuelled by liquid confidence as she watched the party play on around them "I'm scared that I overthink things, you know? Maybe that's why I'm not great at dating. Like, what would happen if I just let go for a night?"

James kept his eyes on her, praying he knew what she was getting at. "And what would that look like exactly?"

Lily tilted her head and smirked at him, her perfect mouth shining with the slickness of her drink. "A bloody good time for you, probably."

_Merlin's left testicle, he was going to explode._

"Lily-" he began, only for their sexual tension to be shattered by a shriek from the spin the bottle circle.

"Prongs, gonna need you to adjudicate mate!" Sirius yelled, beckoning him over.

James groaned. "I'll be back, I promise."

Lily didn't say a word. Instead, she sank back in the cushions and raised her glass to his retreating back.

The issue became clear to James as soon as he approached the haphazard circle on the floor.

"So, I spun it…" Sirius shrugged, motioning at the empty glass bottle on the floor, which was pointed neatly between two girls on the opposite side of the circle: Marlene and Amber Coutts.

"I see."

"So what do I do now, flip a coin? Three-way kiss?"

The circle howled in approval at Sirius' final proposition. Marlene and Amber looked deeply unimpressed.

"Okay" James stood behind his best mate's head. "Let's look at this logically" he addressed the circle "it is Amber's birthday today and you did shit on it by winning the first game of the season" he waited for the whooping of the Gryffindors in the room to die down "and you know the rule about Marlene."

"Er, Marlene doesn't know the rule about Marlene" the blonde Beater referred to herself in the third person, causing the people around her to titter with laughter.

"Sirius isn't allowed to fancy you during Quidditch season" James said loudly "He's been banned for years."

"What happens outside of Quidditch season?" Alice piped up from the sidelines, echoing the thought rattling around in Marlene's head.

The boys ignored her.

Sirius nodded thoughtfully "so, by default…"

"Happy sweet sixteen, Amber" James winked at the Hufflepuff, who had turned a deep shade of red. He left his best mate to lean over the circle and finish the game.

By the time he got back to the sofas, Lily was deep in conversation with a Ravenclaw he didn't recognise. He'd have to tackle that particular situation later, he resolved, when he'd had some more liquid courage.

"Shots?" Marlene asked behind him, having excused herself from the game on the floor. "Merlin knows I could do with one."

"I'm sorry about that, Mar, I-"

"Sorry about what?" the blonde brushed off his apology, quickly decanting shots of Firewhisky into glasses for the pair of them.

He fixed her with a look. "You and Sirius have never kissed. I didn't want the first time you did to be in front of a crowd at a party."

"He should be so lucky" Marlene's smile was tight as they clinked their glasses together and threw the scalding liquid down their gullets. "Were you playing footsie with Lily earlier?"

James was taken aback "no! But she was being a bit…un-Lilylike."

"Forward and flirty? It's the Firewhisky."

"I wasn't complaining" James insisted. "I just wish we could've finished our conversation."

Marlene watched as the redhead gesticulated wildly and threw half her cocktail down herself. "Now might be a good time to excuse her from the party and see if she wants some fresh air."

James shook his head. "She's had too much to drink, Mar. It wouldn't be right. Can you…?"

Marlene, ever reliable, lay a hand on his shoulder. "Go and enjoy yourself, mate. She's in safe hands."

Much later, after they'd all had too much to drink and their feet were sore from dancing, the girls recounted their night curled up on the sofas as the party died down. How Lily had performed her rousing rendition of ABBA's _Mamma Mia_ to a confused group of purebloods whilst Alice and Marlene provided backing vocals, that Emmeline's first introduction to Pete had been to instinctively rescue him from his second trainwreck of a conversation with a girl that evening, how James and Sirius had been cornered by aggressive sixth-years who'd demanded that they did body shots of Firewhisky off of their six packs – once the crowd had gotten involved, they didn't really have a choice.

They were all musing over how Marlene had managed to lose one of her shoes, when Lily blurted out: "who knew that _Potter_ had a six pack?"

They all knew which story of the evening she was stuck on, then.

Alice chuckled and took the Head Girl firmly by the elbow, leading her up to the dormitory.

"Can you two make sure you use a Silencing Charm tonight please?" Marlene pleaded Doe and Emmeline, who looked like they were about to go for a round on the sofa if they weren't stopped. "I don't want to be reminded of how much no one wants to shag me by listening to you guys having great sex."

"Hello, Bert MacMillan was drooling over you tonight!" Emmeline pointed out.

That much was true. Marlene wondered if she could sneak her way over to the Hufflepuff dormitories at this time of night and not face any consequences, but then she remembered she was on her last chance with Dumbledore, and he'd almost definitely expel her for seeking a shag halfway across the castle at four in the morning.

"He's too nice a boy" Marlene said "I'd walk all over him."

And, even though she hated to admit it, she was still agonising over that game of spin the bloody bottle.

"Are you coming up?" Doe asked, outstretching a hand for her best friend.

Marlene cast one last glance around the room. It had emptied considerably. Remus, always the responsible one, was starting to tidy up with flicks of his wand. James and Peter were wrapping the remaining bottles into the bottom of their t-shirts, cradling them like babies, as they headed towards the dormitory.

Sirius was in the corner of the room, his head bent close to Amber's, deep in earnest conversation.

Yep, she'd _definitely_ had enough of the party.

"Night, all!" Marlene called "hangover cure delivery at midday?"

"You're the be-est" James sing-songed, scooping his precious stash closer to him.

"Lily is, actually" Marlene corrected him. She could feel Sirius looking over at her, and she turned to wave, her face not betraying the sinking feeling in her stomach.

"Sleep tight, ladies" Sirius raised a bottle of Butterbeer, barely breaking eye contact with the fifth-year Hufflepuff.

"Don't forget to use protection" Marlene bit back, sweeping up the stairs in front of Doe and Emmeline.

_Fucking knobgoblin_ she thought bitterly, heaving herself up the stairs at lightning speed and ignoring the tell-tale titter of her best friend behind her. _What did you have to go and say that for?_

* * *

Sirius took a long swig from his bottle, watching in bemusement as the room rearranged itself around him.

"It's not fair to string girls along, you know" Amber piped up, resting her own bottle between her knees. "She really thinks you're going to fuck me."

The boy beside her let out a bark-like laugh: "aren't I?"

The fifth-year sighed. "Sirius, you're three sheets to the wind and you've just spent the past twenty minutes trying to tell me all of the reasons you don't fancy Marlene."

"Not convincing, is he?" Remus grinned unhelpfully, lifting up a final sofa cushion and sending it whizzing back to the seating area.

"It's Quidditch season" Sirius shrugged "I'm not allowed to fancy her. James would kill me."

"That doesn't mean you don't, you bellend" Amber muttered. "It's obvious to any idiot that you're obsessed with each other."

He didn't respond.

"You should tell her" Amber insisted "man up and take her on a date."

Remus joined the pair and was nodding in fervent agreement.

Sirius shook his head. They didn't get it, and he didn't know how to put it into words. Marlene was a lot of things: sarky, a complete pain, a walking thesaurus when she wanted to be, but most importantly she was one of his closest friends. He couldn't lose her.

They'd spent years dancing around the subject. Their final year in the castle didn't need to be any different. Sure, he wanted to punch Bert MacMillan every time he looked at Marlene, but he could try and live with that. If they just buried it, they wouldn't have to deal with the consequences if it all went wrong.

Bloody hell, he should've kissed her.

"She's going to be furious at you for spin the bottle" Remus didn't need to tell his friend, but Sirius groaned in agreement, knowing that his Quidditch partner was already fucking fuming.

"I'm not complaining" was Amber's response.

"You should go" Sirius told the girl in front of him. "Unless you're coming upstairs."

Amber rolled her eyes. "That's not how you do business, Black" she told him. "Don't pretend you're a twat, just admit you kissed the wrong girl."

"You could always come up" Sirius pitched "make her jealous for the morning."

Remus and Amber both reached out and punched him on either arm, almost causing him to drop his bottle.

Amber followed it by ruffling Sirius' hair, before gathering her belongings and bidding goodbye to the two boys.

The two Marauders sat quietly by the fire for a while.

"We should probably take that" Remus nodded at the cobalt blue high heel that had been unearthed in the tidy-up. "Marlene will want it back in the morning."

"What am I going to do, Moony?" Sirius sighed, resting his head in his hands.

His friend clapped him on his back "you need to tell her."

A heavy silence fell once more.

"In the morning" Sirius agreed.

"In the morning" Remus repeated. "Let's get some sleep, mate. Big day tomorrow."

Later, Sirius slipped Marlene's abandoned shoe into his trunk.

He wasn't sure how to talk his way out of this one, but he'd have to try his hardest.

She'd be at their door in a few short hours, and he had a lot of thinking to do.


	10. Party's Over (October 1977)

"How can we play this properly when it's just the two of us?" Lily asked the figure opposite her, reaching her hand to spin the empty bottle of Butterbeer.

The bespectacled boy smirked. "I suppose we'll just have to risk it, Evans."

The Common Room fire had died down to embers, but the Head Boy and Girl couldn't deny the heat in the room.

Lily didn't break eye contact with him as the bottle spun between them. She didn't doubt that he'd used a non-verbal spell to bring it screeching to a stop at his feet.

"Was that necessary?" she asked him, leaning over onto all fours to get closer to him.

"You might've decided to snog yourself" he reasoned "or one of the portraits."

Lily rolled her eyes and tugged at the collar of his shirt. His breath was hot on her face, and she could've sworn that his glasses were about to steam up.

She'd thought about kissing him more times than she cared to admit and, as she sank into him, her mouth on his, it was even more glorious than she'd been led to believe.

Their kisses became more desperate, from sumptuous groaning into open mouths to furious, scorching attacks against one another. She wasn't sure if he'd break first, or if she would, but as she reached across to unbutton his shirt, she felt her actions matched.

She was going to fuck James Potter, she was sure of it.

"Lily" James' voice was panicked as his mouth detached from hers "what's that on your, um-?"

His fingers had stopped undoing the buttons of her school shirt and, confused, she looked down at herself.

Only to see the word _Mudblood_ etched into her chest, over and over and over again.

"Sweetheart, you're bleeding" James' voice was hushed, almost awe-struck, as he watched the slur slither and slice against her alabaster skin.

She could see that.

Slowly, Lily ran her fingers over the main culprit, a jagged slash across her breasts. Her blood was heavy and stained her fingertips black.

James made a bizarre noise and she could see the same thick liquid oozing from between his lips, staining his school shirt. He was choking on it. Had she done this to him?

She was strangely calm about it all, really. As if she'd been here before. She could feel the tell-tale pinpricks of the words beneath her knee-high socks, spilling out between her thighs, catching the lining of her skirt.

When James next spoke, she didn't recognise his voice. When she looked up, she couldn't make him out. She was falling into an impossible blackness.

"You muddy, scummy cunt" the shadows spat at her "did you think I'd ever touch you?"

* * *

Lily woke with a start.

Instinctively, she threw her covers aside and pulled down her nightie, just to be sure. All clear.

And Potter wasn't dead, was he? Because she definitely hadn't kissed him the night before.

Lily didn't buy into Divination. She didn't trust horoscopes, visions, and she'd been to too many bad village fetes to trust any crystal ball, but she felt sick to her stomach.

_Did you think I'd ever touch you?_

"Lil, you awake?" Alice called softly from the other side of the curtains. "Want some of your excellent hangover cure?"

The Head Girl caught her breath and pulled the drapes open. Maybe it could all be written off as the hangover from hell. "Please" she croaked, holding out her hands expectedly.

"You sound delightful" Doe noted, passing her a small bottle of the purple potion.

Lily knocked it back effortlessly. "Weird dream" she admitted "probably too much Firewhisky. Where's Emmeline?"

"She went to get breakfast" came the reply "we were waiting to see if you would emerge at any point today."

"Em worked up an appetite, did she?" Alice asked dryly, dodging the pillow that came flying her way in response.

Lily nodded at the empty bed next to her. "And Mar?"

Doe shrugged "we think she's either gone for a run or to strangle Sirius in his sleep."

Both seemed like plausible options after the events of the night before. The whole room knew that Marlene was trying not to lose face, but the spark between the two Gryffindor Beaters had always been undeniable. To be embarrassed like that at a party, surrounded by everyone, must have been difficult.

"Ready to face the day?" Alice asked cheerily. "We've got an exciting day of breakfast and Charms homework ahead."

Lily shrugged, trying not to think about their Concealment Charm essay, "if I say so myself, the potion's a lifesaver. Has anyone been to give the boys theirs yet?"

Most of the Gryffindor students had had Lily's hangover potion on constant order since her fourth year, and the Marauders were no exception. Remus had once told her that it tasted like Parma Violets, which was the biggest compliment the muggleborn could ever have hoped for.

"I'm sure Alice can deliver them" Doe beamed. "You could take one for Amber and drink it in front of her, as a favour to Mar."

Alice's middle finger did the talking for her.

"I might come with you. Can I shower first?" Lily's enthusiasm surprised the whole room.

"You don't usually deliver, Lil. Are you sure you're feeling alright?"

"Something to do with last night's outrageous flirting, probably" Doe stage-whispered, as if Lily couldn't hear them.

"We could've done with some good soft porn last night, Lil, you let us down" Alice teased. "Poor James nearly had a heart attack with all your dirty talk."

Lily ignored her friends as she breezed towards the bathroom. There was no harm in checking that Potter was still alive, was there?

* * *

Predictably, Remus and Peter were the only ones who responded to the knock on their door half an hour later.

"It's so _loud_" Peter whined as Remus ushered Lily and Alice into the dorm.

"Don't worry" Alice reassured Pete, pressing the potion bottle into his hands. "Lily's sorted us all out."

"Lily, I love you" Pete wheezed, before sucking at the bottle enthusiastically.

"Thank you, Lil" Remus added, swigging his down in one "and welcome to our humble abode."

The other girls had been in the boys' dorm hundreds of times before, whether it was nicking Firewhisky from their trusted stash (Doe), arguing about Quidditch tactics (Marlene), or playing late-night games of Exploding Snap (Alice), or the particularly memorable time when the three of them had used physical force to rouse Sirius before a Quidditch match in sixth year.

Whilst her friends had made a million memories inside these walls, it was Lily's first time there and she drank it all in greedily.

On the whole, it was tidier than she'd expected, but then she supposed the House Elves were to thank for that. A sagging bookshelf filled with their schoolbooks lived near the windows, it also boasted practical joke manuals, books on obscure magical practices and, of course, Quidditch strategy.

They'd scrawled their silly nicknames onto a banner and draped it around half the room, presumably so they couldn't forget their own identities, and Lily thought she spied a trunk full of Zonko's products at the bottom of Sirius' empty bed. The leftover bottles from the night before littered the floor, and it was a wonder that no-one had put their foot through one in their hungover state.

The maroon drapes around James' bed remained closed. Disappointed, Lily turned her attention back to the two boys in front of her. "So, how many more potions are we leaving?"

Pete frowned. "Just two, obviously. Padfoot will be back soon."

"No-one got lucky last night, then?" Alice joked "and Pete, you were doing so well!"

"Don't remind me" the boy groaned, flopping back onto his mattress in defeat.

"We'll get you there, Pete, don't worry" Lily told him.

She hadn't noticed James' curtains open, so it was a surprise to her when he spoke from behind her: "Wormy just needs a good shag, Evans, so go and find some volunteers."

"I thought you lot were meant to be the Casanovas of the castle, can't you help?" Lily shot back.

He looked even scruffier than usual, if it were possible. His blue Tutshill Tornados t-shirt was crumpled, and she pointedly ignored the fact that he only had boxers on his bottom half. His brown eyes were watery behind his glasses and his hair…well, it was best not to even start with the hair.

And yet, all Lily wanted to do was kiss him, to see how his mouth would feel on hers, like she'd wanted to do at the party last night. The sitting dread in her stomach warned her about the thick glob of blood that had caught around his tongue in her dream. Her dirty blood.

She swallowed. "Hangover cure?"

The Head Boy took the proffered bottle gratefully. "You're my hero" he declared "and I liked the karaoke segment at the party last night – it's good to know you have some flaws."

Lily felt the tips of her ears tickle as they turned pink. "Jog on, Potter."

"Gladly" he finished the potion and pressed the bottle back in her palm. "Shall we go and get some food?"

She ignored the butterflies in her stomach and nodded "sounds like a good idea. We'll wait downstairs?"

"Unless you want to stay and watch me change, Evans."

Lily didn't need to look at the size of the smirk on his face. Six months ago, she'd have hexed him for a lesser comment. But now, here she was, in his room, rolling her eyes.

"Better luck next time, Potter" she said coolly. "You've got five minutes."

As she and Alice made her way back to the Common Room, the Head Girl wondered, not for the first time, how on earth she'd managed to get herself into this situation.

And, more importantly, how she was going to get herself out of it.

* * *

When Sirius Black thought back on his time at Hogwarts, he had loads of moments to be proud of:

The first time Peeves had used his name as a swear word; his first detention; his greatest prank of all time in fifth year, which had flooded three separate floors of the castle (including the dungeons and Slytherin Common Room) and seen him inflate four of Lily Evans' rubber ducks to transport the Marauders from classroom to classroom amongst the chaos; the first time they'd succeeded in transforming into their Animagi selves and Moony had cried and then ignored them for three solid days; yesterday's blinder of a Bludger.

But the proudest, and most useful, by far was sat in his hands at that precise moment.

The Marauders' Map had taken years, tens of quills and hundreds of feet of parchment to get right. The third attempt had been accidentally set on fire by Pete, the thirtieth had been a mania-fuelled weekend that had left them all with severe hand cramps and stained their hands black for a week, but now they had parchment piece number one hundred and twenty-two. The finished product.

It had come in handy for the important things: dodging Filch, setting up more glorious pranks, sneaking out from various beds across the castle and back to his own in the middle of the night, and ensuring that they weren't being followed in the run-up to Moony's time of the month.

Right that second, stumbling through the castle grounds, he needed to find Marlene.

He was drunk and determined and this was going to be the best way to-

Sirius stopped when he saw Marlene and Hagrid in intense conversation outside the gamekeeper's hut. He wasn't sure if he was imagining that both of their hands were covered in blood, but there was only one way to find out.

He wiped the map quickly and hurried down the slope. The closer he got to the scene, he could see that Marlene's grey t-shirt was stained red down the front, and Hagrid was sobbing.

Marlene was trying to stop her hands from shaking when she heard Sirius call down to them: "what's happened? Are you okay?"

"It's alright, Hagrid" Marlene tried to reassure the gargantuan figure in front of her. His shoulders were wracking as his tears kept coming, and between them they looked down at the lifeless animals between their feet.

Sirius recognised the six illegal Lobalugs that Professor Kettleburn had procured for their Care of Magical Creatures lessons. Their normally bright-coloured bodies were sallow against the morning dew. It took a few seconds for him to realise that they'd been sliced open neatly from head to tail, their venom sacs popped and entrails hanging from the carcasses.

"What the _fuck_?" he breathed, taking a step closer. He laid what he hoped was a comforting hand on Hagrid's back "mate, what…?"

The gamekeeper's eyes were red-rimmed and he took an impressive breath in, sucking in the snot that had started to hang from the end of his nose. "Marlene found 'em on her run" he croaked, nodding to the blonde in front of him. "She came to get me to see if I could help, b-but it was too l-l-late."

As Hagrid broke down again, Sirius met Marlene's eyes. They both knew that the creatures had been kept in a charmed classroom on the second floor. It had been pitch black in there, with a freezing cold tank taking up most of the room. Professor Kettleburn could be a bit of an acquired taste, but he was meticulous in the care of his charges. As a non-student, Marlene had only been allowed in the room as part of a piece for the Herald on creature classification, and Professor Kettleburn had been present the entire time. This made no sense.

"They were in the Forest" Marlene said quietly. "Like someone had taken them out there and…"

"They wouldn't have lasted long out of water" Sirius told her, unsure if that was meant to make the situation better or worse.

"What can you use the venom for?"

"I don't know" Sirius admitted "we hadn't gotten that far yet."

"I s'pose I'd better find Professor Kettleburn" Hagrid's voice was gravelly with emotion. "See if 'e wants ta bury them…"

"Hagrid" Marlene's voice was small, and Sirius could tell she was trying not to cry. "Do you want us to stay? Help?"

He shook his head. "You've bin brilliant, Marlene. Go inside and get cleaned up, right?"

Instinctively, Sirius took Marlene's hand in his, ignoring the red staining her palms. "C'mon."

She let him guide her through the castle, barely registering the stares of other students as they passed through the corridors. She wasn't sure if they were staring at the bloodstains on her clothes, or the fact that Sirius was holding her hand after the party last night.

The Common Room was, thankfully, empty when they entered. All Marlene wanted to do was crawl into bed and not move for the rest of the day.

"Do you…" Sirius cleared his throat "do you want to take a shower in our room? If you don't want to be alone?"

Marlene shook her head. A heavy sigh made its way out of her mouth. "It doesn't feel safe here anymore, does it? Or am I going mad?"

"You're not going mad."

Every inch of her felt heavy. "I'll see you later, Sirius" her voice sounded defeated. "Thanks for the help."

He fought every muscle in his body not to take her chin in his hands, make her look at him, so that he could be the one to look after her. Make her feel alright.

Instead, he watched her walk up the stairs to the girls' dormitory without a word.

Marlene slipped out of her trainers and pulled off her socks. She flexed her toes against the carpet to try and feel more grounded.

She pulled something the pocket of her joggers and checked it in the light, to make sure she hadn't imagined it in the Forest.

She'd been running her usual route to clear her head. To try and get the sinking feeling that she wasn't good enough for Sirius Black out of the pit of her stomach. She hadn't needed to pay attention, her feet had been moving automatically, and she'd made that journey hundreds of times before.

After she'd tripped over the first Lobalug and gone flying, it had taken a few minutes to realise what she was seeing. They were all in a circle, tails eerily against each other, stomach contents splayed across the dirt.

As her eyes had followed the entrails in horror, she'd spotted it. She'd thought it was skin from the dead animals at first, but it wasn't, it wasn't the right colour and it didn't have the same rubbery texture.

It was human skin, and it was burned black.

She may not have the coveted title of editor at the Herald anymore, but there was one thing that had made Marlene a great journalist: her determination to get to the bottom of a story.

She just needed to figure this one out.

* * *

Lily had just finished stuffing scrambled eggs into her mouth when Professor Dumbledore appeared over her shoulder.

"Hi, Professor" Doe beamed, spearing a roasted tomato with her fork, "how's your weekend going?"

"I felt I should come and congratulate you all on an excellent match yesterday" the Headmaster smiled. "I trust everyone celebrated responsibly last night?"

James ignored the headmaster's pointed stare. "Thank you, Sir. It was a really good game."

"Wonderful" Dumbledore absent-mindedly twiddled with the end of his beard "Miss Evans, I apologise for interrupting your breakfast, but I wondered if you'd be so kind as to join me in my office when you've finished?"

Lily nodded, mouth still full.

"She'll be five minutes" Alice translated.

"Do you want someone to come with you?" James asked, watching the Head Girl with curiosity as she finished chewing.

"No, I'm okay. I'll try and remember to sneak some bon-bons out though."

Doe saluted Lily as she slipped out of the room and through the familiar maze of corridors and stairs to the headmaster's office.

After she'd guessed the new password – _chocolate limes_ – she was back in Dumbledore's office. Cosy, yet cavernous, with the familiar clicking of Fawkes' beak against his water bowl in the background.

What she hadn't been prepared for was company and, yet, there were three chairs in front of Dumbledore's desk. The one closet to the door was empty, waiting for her.

She could see Sev occupying the one furthest from the door and Marlene, ever letting the loyal part of her brain overrule everything else, had plonked herself in the middle chair to put as much space between her and her former best friend.

"How was your run?" Lily settled down in the empty chair, pretending that this set-up was the most normal thing in the world.

Marlene's hair was still wet and she looked deeply unimpressed. "You wouldn't believe me even if I told you" she responded. "Any idea what we're here for?"

Before Lily could say anything, their Headmaster appeared from the side of the room and took his place at the desk.

"Apologies for commandeering your weekends, especially with some of you having a late night yesterday, but it was imperative that we have this discussion before the school week begins."

_Shit._ Marlene groaned inwardly. She was going to be expelled.

Dumbledore rested his elbows on the desk, his hands clasped together, as if he were about to pray. He turned to Lily first: "Miss Evans, I trust that you are recovering well after your assault?"

Marlene could've sworn she felt Snape flinch next to her.

"I…I suppose" was Lily's response. She didn't really want to go into the detail of last night's ridiculous dream, or the fact that her friends were still refusing to let her go anywhere alone. The surface answer was fine.

"And are you satisfied with the measures that have been taken?"

Lily wasn't sure what to say. She rolled her answer on her tongue for a few seconds: "I'm happy that Dolohov has been expelled, Professor, but there were several other people involved in the…incident. I'd like to know what efforts have been made to trace them, so that other muggleborns aren't put at risk for the rest of the year."

Dumbledore nodded. "Of course. Miss McKinnon, you may remember that you came to me with a list of names in the day following the incident."

"I did, so I'd quite like to know why_ he's_ still here" Marlene snapped.

The Headmaster sighed. "Marlene, you informed me that those names had been gathered through intimidation and harm, isn't that correct?"

"It is" Marlene didn't even blush "which is why I'm no longer on the Herald, and why I'm serving detention for the rest of my natural life."

Despite herself, Lily allowed herself a small smile at her friend's bullishness.

"Mr Dolohov confessed to being involved in the attack on you, Miss Evans, which is why he was expelled with immediate effect. All of the others named, including Mr Snape, have been questioned and deny the allegations."

_Well of course they bloody would_ was Lily's first thought.

"Furthermore" the headmaster continued "Mr Snape fervently denies the account that you sought retribution against him, Miss McKinnon."

The only sound in the room was Fawkes' beak knocking against the metal of his water bowl. The two Gryffindor girls were too stunned to speak for what seemed like minutes.

"I…I'm sorry?" Marlene choked out, her cheeks turning red.

"As such, I will be reinstating you as editor of the Herald this week and your detentions will end after tomorrow night."

"I don't understand" Lily said. "How…?"

"Check my wand" Marlene threw it onto the desk in defiance "use your weird Pensieve thing to extract my memory, there is no way this fucking slimeball is telling you the truth. You must be able to see that he's trying to save his own skin?"

"Professor" Lily interrupted before Marlene could start the next phase of her rant "are you saying that there will be no other punishments for the assault? That you won't keep looking for the others?"

"Miss Evans, I promise you that we will continue to try and find those responsible. The safety of all students at this school is our utmost priority" Dumbledore was barely meeting her eyes.

"You've got the names of those responsible" Marlene spluttered "and you're content with just kicking out the ringleader? Like that will make it stop?"

"Mar" Lily put her hand on her friend's arm in warning. She knew if Marlene went much further, she'd get the Herald taken away from her again, or worse. "We should go."

Marlene stood and surveyed the scene before her. Her Headmaster, the most powerful wizard in the country, bowing to the pressure of a seventeen-year-old Slytherin. Forsaking the safety of the most vulnerable in the school.

"If I'm in charge of the Herald again, I won't stop reporting on this" she told Dumbledore sternly "there is something horrible happening at this school, and it's your duty to find it and fix it" her eyes flitted to Snape "not to protect cowards who are ruled by hate."

Dumbledore's voice was measured when he spoke next. "I look forward to reading your return issue, Miss McKinnon."

Lily felt like her stomach was going to fall out of her arsehole. Marlene, sensing the impending panic in her friend's throat, took her by the elbow and shoved her into a nearby broom closet for an urgent debrief.

"What on Merlin's green earth just happened?" the blonde hissed. "Lil, are you okay?"

Lily kept trying to wet her lips with her tongue, but they were too dry. It was like she'd run out of words to say. "Should I have told him, about Sev?"

Marlene shrugged. "I told him for you, remember? He's chosen to ignore it."

"Maybe he thinks…maybe if he keeps them in the castle, it's better than-"

"Than them going out to join You-Know-Who without any NEWTs?" Marlene snorted.

Lily shook her head. "I can't believe I'm about to ask this, but can we trust Dumbledore after this?"

"I don't know" came Marlene's soft reply. "I think maybe we're going to need to rely on each other for a while. Just to be safe."

"But it's not safe here, is it?" the anger that had been building throughout the meeting with Dumbledore was spilling out of Lily now "I was….they…they did _vile_ things to me and I'm the fucking Head Girl. I'm having fucked up dreams, I hate being anywhere on my own, I can barely concentrate on my work and I have to see Sev every single day. What are they going to do to a first-year, Mar?"

Her friend couldn't answer.

"We need to do more" Lily concluded. "What more can we do?"

Marlene grimaced. "You're going to hate this."

"I don't think I can hate much more about today but go on."

"We need to do our own digging" Marlene told her "and we're going to need all the help we can get."

That's how, ten minutes later, the girls found themselves knocking on a familiar door.

Remus opened it and frowned. "Ladies" he stepped aside to allow them into the boy's dormitory "to what do we owe the pleasure?"

And then four words came out of Lily's mouth that the Marauders couldn't have predicted: "we need your help."


	11. Under the Stars (October 1977)

_It's been a while, but hopefully this signals the beginning of more regular uploads! Hope that everyone is staying safe and that you're all doing okay. A huge thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read and review this story. Hope you enjoy this chapter, too. _

* * *

Alice looked up from her third book of the night and let out a small laugh. "This is ridiculous, isn't it?"

Opposite her at the library table, Sirius was threatening to fall asleep on a particularly dusty copy of _Hogwarts: A History_, and Pete was thumbing through _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_ for the fifth time in as many days, trying to make sure he hadn't missed anything.

Since Sunday evening, the seventh-year Gryffindors had turned into amateur sleuths, with every spare waking moment spent keeping an eye on the Slytherin students involved in Lily's attack and trying to unravel the story of the Lobalugs and, more importantly, where their missing venom had gotten to.

"You don't have any proof" Lily had snarled at James in a heated discussion on Sunday evening "you don't know that it was Severus."

Needless to say, the agenda of the Marauders had been clear from the get-go.

Lily and James had ensured that the counselling sessions for muggleborn students were still active and, with the help of her friends, the Head Girl was making plans to step away from her workload to shadow Madame Pomfrey in the Hospital Wing for a few hours each night.

"Everything happens in the Hospital Wing" Remus had told her "you want to be a Healer anyway, but this is an even better way to keep an eye on things. If a muggleborn is injured, you'll be one of the first to know about it."

Gathering information had been chaotic at best, with the girls sticking pieces of parchment under the boys' door at all hours of the day and night. In turn, Alice had started to leave her window ajar for the owls they would send back, with a new scrap of information, or the log of a suspicious sighting tied to their leg.

And, of course, there was still the blackened piece of skin that Marlene had kept from everyone else, slipped between the pages of an old reporter's notebook and stowed in her locked desk at the Herald office.

Sirius yawned. "I think old Pincey's starting to get a bit suspicious" he admitted "I've never been in the library this much in my life."

"It was a surprise to all of us that you could read, Padfoot" Pete said dryly, flicking his own book closed with a resounding thud.

Alice rolled her eyes at the easy banter between the two boys. "I still can't believe Lily just went for it in Potions today. I was sure that Slughorn would know the answer."

They had been in the middle of their lesson on the potion for Dreamless Sleep when the Head Girl, her hands working on pulling stems of hellebore apart, had asked her favourite professor about the uses of Lobalug venom.

James and Sirius had clocked Severus across the room, watching eagerly for his sallow face to betray any emotion, as his house master pondered the question. Much like Lily, they didn't have any luck.

Slughorn had given a polite little cough, like he always did when he felt caught out, and told the class that he'd look into it. Lobalugs, he'd conceded, were incredibly complex creatures and, had he known there were some within Hogwarts grounds, he would have insisted on taking one for scientific purposes.

"I'm sure, Miss Evans, that they would be of great benefit to modern wizarding medicine, but the lack of access is, of course, a challenge in itself…"

They had all tuned out after that, watching on sympathetically as Lily had continued to make her potion whilst Slughorn all but perched on her shoulder for the rest of the lesson.

During weeknights, they were working harder than they'd ever worked before which, given Lily's recent breakdowns, probably wasn't the smartest move in the world.

Their detective work had to fit in with their schedules as naturally as possible, so as not to raise too much suspicion. In between Lily's new nursing duties, Marlene being back on the paper, and everyone's normal NEWT workload, Quidditch practice and Head or Prefect duties, there wasn't much sleep to be had between the seventh year Gryffindors.

Throw in an impending full moon and the Marauders were on their knees.

With Remus resting in the Hospital Wing in preparation – and an excuse fed to the girls about a migraine – the boys were working quickly to wrap up their duties for the evening before heading down to the Whomping Willow.

Across the castle, James and Lily were cocooned in the Head's office discussing the necessities of a new patrol schedule. Unbeknownst to the rest of the Gryffindors, Dorcas and Marlene had gone for a post-dinner drink at Hagrid's hut that evening, close enough to the Forbidden Forest to keep an eye.

* * *

"Girls, yer really didn't need ta come" Hagrid said, his cheeks flushed from the Butterbeer they'd taken with them as an offering "but thanks."

"We just wanted to check in, Hagrid" Dorcas smiled. "I know that Mar's pretty shaken up, and it can't have been easy for you, either."

"Yer welcome anytime" the gamekeeper assured them, ushering the pair towards the door. "But it's late and Minerva'll kill me if-"

"We know" Marlene said, casting _lumos_. "We'll run back as fast as our little legs will carry us, and we'll be back to see you again soon, alright? Maybe we can go and look at those puppies Rosie's dad's selling at the Broomsticks soon?"

"Don' tempt me" Hagrid groaned. "Dumbledore's a good man, but 'e might not let me 'ave a dog."

"Ah, don't worry Hagrid, we can be very persuasive!" Dorcas joked, bidding farewell to him as she and Marlene stepped out into the night.

They were a safe distance away from Hagrid's before either of them spoke.

"Nothing" Doe propelled a heavy sigh from her lips. "Whoever it is, _whatever_ it is, they must just be biding their time."

"Pretty gigantic balls on them, though" Marlene muttered "pull off one of the biggest heists in school history, and for what? It just doesn't make sense."

"And why leave them there?" Doe asked. "Why not throw them in the lake? Bury them? If they thought that no-one would ever find them, why leave them out for show?"

_Because they were sending a message_ Marlene thought, not feeling the need to spell it out for her best friend. _This is what I'll do to a dangerous creature that has something I need, so there's no telling what I'll do to you if you get in my fucking way.  
_  
Their visit to Hagrid's had, of course, been twofold. Not only could the girls keep an eye on the Forbidden Forest for the evening, but legend had it that the gamekeeper had an encyclopaedic knowledge of weird and wonderful creatures. If anyone would know what the black market would do with some Lobalug venom, it would be him.

They'd worked their way up to the subject, tiptoeing around the tragedy until the Butterbeer had started to work its magic. Although Hagrid usually had a fancy for stronger drinks, the warmth of the company had coaxed him to open up.

He'd spent an hour telling them about the illicit trading of highly dangerous creatures, who the right dealers were, who was just a fraudster. "Kettleburn" he'd said, downing another bottle in a single swig "does not mess about. 'E knows the right people ta go to, an' tha's where 'e got the Lobalugs from."

"O' course the Merpeople were furious when they 'eard. Dumbledore went down there ta hold meetings wi' 'em and all. Gossip travels fast, dunnit? They usually live together y'see, under the water. Use 'em in battle. It's a status thing – my Lobalug's got more poison than yours does. It's bigger, it's better, it's won me this fight, y'know?"

"The concentrations of poison in each one is different?" Marlene had asked, running a finger around the rim of her Butterbeer bottle.

"Tha's the thing, Marlene, no-one _really_ knows" his answer had been infuriating. "They're praised as these great weapons in battle, but whether it's actually real or fable…"

He put his bottle down on the table. "One thing's for sure though, they wouldn't 'ave lasted long out of water. It's where they belong" he shook his head slowly, his dark eyes full of sadness "terrible thing, to do tha' to a creature. Jus' terrible."

Doe, sensing that the conversation would end in tears if they carried on, had switched to complimenting his new crop of pumpkins, which Hagrid had taken to with predictable delight.

Now, the two girls crossed the grounds back towards the castle under a sky of rich black ink. The full moon was high, and they could hear the splashing of the Giant Squid in the distance, the whistle of the wind through the trees of the Forbidden Forest, the occasional familiar thwack of the Whomping Willow.

"So, come on then" Marlene was desperate to change the subject. She pointed up at the sky "what can you tell me about the stars this week?"

Doe smirked. She, alongside Peter, were two of only five people in the school who had continued with NEWT level Astronomy. Her more level-headed friends didn't let her forget it. "You hate that stuff" she replied tartly "you don't believe in it anyway."

Marlene pretended to be shocked. "Miss Meadowes, I am positively stunned by that response."

"You once told me that the only thing the Astronomy Tower was good for was for messing around and not getting caught, and that planets were just a concept."

Marlene shrugged, sidestepping to avoid a boulder on their way back up the hill, "I've seen no evidence to the contrary so far."

Doe laughed. "You're infuriating."

"But you love me" Marlene insisted, linking their arms together. "Tell me about the stars."

Dorcas pulled them both to a stop. "Okay" she scanned the sky in front of her like a tapestry, and dropped her friend's arm. "It's interesting" she admitted, her face suddenly serious. "There are stars out tonight which aren't usually as bright at this. Maybe we're just really lucky."

"Which ones?" Marlene pressed, tilting her head up to follow her friend's finger as she pointed.

"Well, that one's always bright" Doe told her, tracing lines across the sky with her fingertip. "But you know that already, don't you? Canis Major, otherwise known as…?"

Marlene groaned.

"I don't hear your usual flair for class participation, Mar."

"Sirius" she grumbled.

"Ten points to Gryffindor" Dorcas beamed. "But this one's interesting" she drew a rough cut of an hourglass "I wonder if it's because it's a full moon? Come to think of it, we've never had a class on a full moon…"

She cleared her throat and continued. "That's Lupus, the wolf constellation. I'm really not sure if I've ever seen it so close before."

"Pretty cool" Marlene admitted. "Do they mean anything? Like when you read tealeaves?"

"They tell stories, you know that."

"So if that one" the blonde pointed back at Lupus "is brighter tonight, what does that mean for its story?"

Doe shrugged. "Fuck if I know. Werewolves?"

As if to answer their question, a long, solitary howl sounded in the distance. All the trees in the forest, and even the Whomping Willow, seemed to stand still for the noise.

Marlene cleared her throat. "We should probably get back to the castle."

"Great idea."

* * *

James had had an inkling that their second full moon of the school year was going to go badly.

First, Remus was stressed about NEWTS, and they all knew from experience that a frazzled boy did not make for a happy werewolf.

Second, James' Dreamless Sleep potion had blown up in his face when he'd added too much Flobberworm mucus earlier that day.

Third, every single one of the boys had been running late. For their usual crap timekeeping, they were always on time for a full moon, so that Remus didn't have to be on his own for more than a few minutes at most.

Tonight, however, he'd been caught up in patrol schedules with Lily, Sirius was being lectured by McGonagall about a prank involving exploding inkwells ("amateur hour!" he'd hissed angrily at the boys "as if she thinks that lowly of my pranking abilities when we completed it in first year…"), and Pete was being rushed out of the Restricted section of the library having snuck his way in without a pass.

And here they were, huddled under the Invisibility Cloak, pelting it down to the Whomping Willow, and problem number four were stargazing fifteen feet away from them.

The boys couldn't believe what they were seeing.

"Are they having a laugh?" James' jaw was slack "what are they doing here?"

They could hear Moony's howl echo out of the Shrieking Shack, travelling under the roots of the Whomping Willow and across the castle grounds. Sirius saw Marlene shiver and the girls continued making their way up the hill.

"It's okay" Pete tried to reassure him "look, they're going back up-"

"We need to make sure they get there" Sirius butted in. "If he comes out or they come down…"

"Agreed" James' voice was curt. "Padfoot, can you follow them up? Wormy, I'll go in first for playtime, you come back out and let Sirius in when you can, alright?"

Peter paled. "I don't like the sound of this" he admitted "we should all go in together, like always."

It was too late, the cloak had dropped in height as Sirius transformed, and the remaining Marauders watched as the shaggy dog went trotting up the hill.

Padfoot still hadn't reappeared by the time they reached the base of the tree. James steeled himself, ignoring the sour sting of dread in his mouth.

_Calm down, you fucking idiot_. He reasoned with himself. _It's just a bad day. Nothing can get to you in the Shack_.

Except, of course, the huge werewolf that was his welcoming party.

Soon, his hooves were clacking along the all-too-familiar dirt passageway. A jarring symphony of Remus' growls and yelps had overtaken the tunnel. James felt like he was surrounded by pain before he'd even reached the door.

He could see the familiar claw marks buried deep into the wall outside the door, where Remus almost hadn't made it into the room in the spring of fifth year. They'd all been new into their routine, and Poppy had fallen behind schedule. It had taken the stag and the dog to barrel him into the room and force the door closed.

James checked behind him one last time. Still no sign of his missing packmate, but Wormtail squeaked encouragingly near his feet, urging him to go in.

Prongs' front hoof dug into the dirt nervously, before he threw open the door with his antlers.

The room, as always, was in complete disarray. The walls were battered, the wallpaper gashed, and the nice piano they'd salvaged from a market in Hogsmede had been destroyed, the keys pulled out of the wood by Moony's teeth, and spat across the room like discarded chicken bones.

He'd caught himself in the piano's innards by the time Prongs reached him. His eyes were yellow slits and his fur was filled with deep slashes, large sections of his coarse hair matted together with his own blood.

It always amazed him, to think that his quiet, calm best friend could do this much damage to himself.

Moony pounced straight at Prongs, his huge teeth gnashing angrily at the open air between them. The stag offered him an antler to the gums instead, causing the wolf to whimper and become even more irate.

They toppled over one another, Moony's claws striking out at every part of the stag he could reach. Some, James knew from experience, were just scratches, but others were going to sting in the morning.

Prongs threw Moony into the wall, causing the now-defunct piano to shake and emit a long wheeze, which would serve as the soundtrack for what was to come.

The werewolf came back at him, pitching over the top of him, and digging his claws into his rump. Prongs' back hooves shot up in shock, and he continued to buck furiously until his friend could hold on no longer.

It seemed to go on forever, this to-ing and fro-ing. Prongs was used to it but, without Padfoot, and with Wormtail mysteriously absent, he was tiring quickly.

After another round, he'd managed to shake off his Remus' grip using his antlers, and now they were facing one another, ready to do battle again.

Thinking he heard the door creak open behind him, Prongs turned expectedly, stupidly, only to be wiped out by the werewolf.

Moony pinned him down by the side of his body and dug his claws into the tenderness of his stomach, effortlessly ripping through flesh and fur.

Prongs tried to stand, but couldn't. James could feel an odd, warm sensation coming over him. He tried to shake it off and was swatted by Moony's mighty paws, which felt a lot larger than they had just moments ago.

The room suddenly felt a lot smaller, the breath in his chest cavity wasn't doing as much as it should have been, and he could feel his muscles pulling together like they were made of tightening elastic. James knew, with horror, that he was shrinking out of his Animagus form and back into himself, but he was powerless to stop it.

The hunger in Moony's eyes said it all.

James Potter was going to die in the Shrieking Shack.

He could have sworn he heard a familiar, feral growl from behind him, before exhaustion claimed him and everything went black.

* * *

Lily didn't know how Peter had found out the password to the Head's Office, or how he knew she'd still be in there at two in the morning, but by the look on his face she didn't dare to question it.

"P-potions" the colour had drained from his face as he repeated his plea. "Lily, please" he gasped "healing potions…James…"

"James is hurt?" the Head Girl asked sharply. "What's happened?"

"No time to explain, Evans" Sirius rushed into the room, carrying something she couldn't quite see in his arms. She watched in confusion as he kneeled down next to the sofa and revealed James, as naked as the day he was born, and with half of his stomach hanging out.

Lily's brain was taking a few seconds to catch up with the rest of her. "Wait, is that an-"

"Invisibility Cloak? Yes. Dying Head Boy? Also yes" Sirius locked eyes with her, and she could see that his clothes were covered in his best friend's blood. "Evans, fucking hurry up."

The redhead cast a quick Silencing Charm within the confines of the room. "Peter" she said quickly "I need you to go to the Tower, get one of the girls to bring down my potions drawers and bag. Now."

He didn't waste any time and was out the door like a shot.

"Sirius" she approached the sofa cautiously. She could hear James' breathing was tight and closer to a gasp, his whole chest rattling with the effort. They didn't have much time. "I need to know who, or what, did this to him."

Sirius shook his head, his eyes full of tears. "Can't" he croaked.

"Sirius" she was sterner when she spoke again "some injuries are cursed, and if I treat this the wrong way, James will die. I'm guessing there's a reason you haven't taken him to the Hospital Wing."

Sirius' hands were shaking as he tried to hold James' head back. "Werewolf."

"Okay" Lily kept the screaming in her head at bay and thought for a moment. "I need you to keep holding his head straight like that for me. I-" she took a deep breath "whatever I do, this is probably going to scar, Sirius, and if I can't fix it, we have to take him to the Hospital Wing."

"Agreed."

Lily cleared her mind and began moving her wand over James' stomach, forcing herself to think about it should fit back together. "_Vulnera Sanentur_" came out as a command, and she could see the blood flow from his wound begin to lessen.

Sirius nodded encouragingly, not taking his hands off of his friend's neck.

Lily repeated the incantation, watching in wonder as the Head Boy's entrails began folding themselves neatly back into the gaping hole, and the flesh of his stomach began moulding around it.

She pulled a small bottle of dittany from her pocket and applied it liberally to the skin of James' stomach. "_Vulnera Sanentur_" she repeated firmly, praying that it would work.

They both watched in silence for what felt like hours as the wound began to sew itself up, pulling separated skin back together and knotting near James' bellybutton.

"You bloody brilliant witch" Sirius breathed as the wound finished stitching itself.

"Not over yet" Lily warned him, trying hard to ignore the crimson stain on her hands.

Peter slipped in through the door, a small set of black drawers under one arm, and a medical bag under the other. Lily accepted them with a thanks and got to work, with Sirius holding James' head up and pinching his nose to force him to swallow.

First, four bottles of Blood-Replenishing Potion. Second, the Dreamless Sleep Potion she'd brewed earlier that day, so he wouldn't wake up during anything potentially painful. Lastly, she mashed up some Shrivelfig leaves with a generous glob of spit, which she hoped would stop any internal swelling.

By the time she was finished, almost three hours had passed, and James was regaining colour in his face. She thanked God that his breathing, although still laboured, was no longer the death rattle that he'd greeted her with.

Sirius had watched her in silence the whole time, gently repositioning his friend at her instruction. Lily knew he wasn't going to leave the room easily, but she'd need him to if she wanted to get this last part done.

"Sirius, I'm going to need at least twelve more Blood Replenishing Potions" she admitted. "Madame Pomfrey keeps fifty in the Hospital Wing at any given time. They're in the drawers near her office, the ones under the mirrors? Can you get them for me? And then maybe you could get James some clothes?"

"You want me to steal for you?" Sirius smiled for the first time all night.

Lily didn't bother responding to his question. She turned her attention to Peter, who was sat a safe distance away on James' desk chair. He'd bitten his nails down to the quick. "Pete, I think you should get some sleep. I'd imagine that Remus will want to see you when daylight comes" she looked at the clock above his head pointedly "which means you can get a few hours' sleep, doesn't it? I'd like to clean up in here."

"Thank you, Lily" Sirius said, resting a hand on her shoulder. "I knew you could do it."

When she spoke, Lily's voice was quiet and full of venom. "Don't ever put me in that position again, Sirius."

"Trust me" came the reply "I didn't want to put you in it."

When she was finally alone, Lily let the tears come. Once they started, she wasn't sure she'd be able to stop. Her hands, which had been so steady when she'd needed them, started to shake as she gently levitated James to clean the blood from the sofa beneath him.

She used a quick Cleaning Spell on Sirius' cloak and wrapped it over the Head Boy like a blanket. Then she sat next to him and held his hand in hers, listening intently to the sound of his breathing.

"When you wake up" she said softly "you owe me the truth, James Potter."

In response, he gave a small grunt in his sleep.


	12. The Morning After (October 1977)

_Thank you to everyone who left a review on the last chapter. More than 500 of you read it, so I hope that's a good sign! Hope you're all keeping safe and well in these bizarre times and enjoy the chapter. x_

* * *

Whenever his friends asked him what the morning after a full moon felt like, Remus could only refer them to their worst hangovers as a starting point.

How could he explain the unsettling, prickling agony of his bones slowly shrinking back into their joints properly, the blinding pain it took for his eyes to readjust to normal light, the absolute terror at not remembering the night before?

Well, he supposed they could all relate to the last point. But he was more likely to have caused some real damage than any of the Marauders in a blackout state.

Apart from the time, perhaps, that Pete had almost set fire to the Owlery when he was off his face in fourth year.

This morning though, Remus didn't feel like he usually did. Despite Madame Pomfrey's best potions, he could still feel a dull throb of pain in his bones. From the claw marks across his chest, he could see he'd done some real damage to himself the night before.

But that deep, swirling sense of panic was in the back of his throat. He was hyper-alert. It was as if part of the wolf were still inside him.

When he turned to see only Peter in a chair beside him, that the two other chairs the nurse always left out were empty, he felt like he couldn't breathe.

Something very, very bad had happened last night. He was sure of it.

"Wormtail" he hissed "wake up!"

The boy in the chair sneezed and woke with a start. Taking a moment for his eyes to focus, he smiled "morning, Moony. How are you feeling?"

Remus didn't bother to answer the question. "Where are the others?"

Pete's ears tinged pink, which always happened when he was uncomfortable. "They're with Lily in the Heads' Office" he lied "they had some stuff to go over."

"On a Saturday?"

"Yes."

"_Sirius_ had some stuff to go over with James and Lily at" he checked the giant clock on the wall "eight in the morning on a Saturday? After the full moon?"

Peter shifted in his chair. His "yes" was more defiant this time.

Merlin, Remus was going to be sick.

"What happened, Pete?" he asked gently "I have this awful feeling that I…"

He didn't remember much of course. Colours mostly, clashes of black, brown, a thousand shades of red.

They both looked up as the curtain around Remus' bed drew back and Sirius slipped between them.

"Morning, mate" he settled three bars of Honeyduke's caramel onto Remus' nightstand "how're you doing?"

His friend eyed the confectionary with suspicion. Remus wasn't necessarily saying that Sirius tended to overcompensate with presents when things went tits up, but the last time he'd been given three chocolate bars was when Padfoot had exploded their near-perfect Draught of Peace in fifth year two days before OWLs.

"So…" Sirius leaned forward, casting a quick _muffliato_ around Remus' cubicle. "How much do you remember about last night?"

"Is Prongs dead?"

Sirius laughed hollowly. Pete continued to squirm like someone had upended an entire ant farm into his pants.

"You didn't finish him off, Moony, don't worry" Sirius reassured him, seamlessly handing him a wastepaper bin to vomit in to.

When Remus resurfaced, he didn't feel much better.

"Wh-what-"

Sirius held up a hand, signalling for silence. "If you stop chucking your guts up, I'll tell you, won't I?"

Remus sat in silence as his friend calmly explained the events of the night before, stopping at several intervals to allow the bin to be revisited.

When he was done, Sirius passed Remus a small vial of Sleeping Draught and forced him to drink it at wandpoint.

"I'm going to tell Madame Pomfrey" Remus declared, feeling wooziness slowly overtake him.

"What, get Evans expelled and the four of us thrown in Azkaban? Fuck off."

"You can't keep doing this!" Remus yelled, alarmingly close to tears "the full moon isn't a fucking game. I could've _killed_ James, or worse. No more."

Sirius shrugged "not your choice, Moony. We all knew the risk and we're happy to take it."

"See how you feel after a sleep" Pete tried, knowing from experience that Remus' upset versus Sirius' stubbornness didn't end well for anyone. "I'm sure Prongs will be able to visit you when you're both feeling a bit better."

"We'll be here when you wake up" Sirius promised, kicking his feet up. "We're not going anywhere."

* * *

To say that James Potter was surprised to be alive was an understatement.

When he'd woken up on the sofa in the Heads' Office, he'd been quite sure that he was dead and, naturally, his ghost had come to haunt Hogwarts for all of eternity and take over from Nearly Headless Nick as the official Gryffindor mascot for the afterlife.

And maybe give Peeves a run for his Galleons.

But, when he'd looked up to see Lily and Sirius peering over him, he'd realised quite quickly that he was still in the land of the living.

"Are you crying?" James had asked his best mate.

"I thought you were dead, you prick."

"I'm not sure how we'd have explained a body to Professor Dumbledore" Lily mused, colour slowly returning to her cheeks.

"The body of the Head Boy, no less" Sirius pointed out. "We'd have been fucked. Plus, mum and dad would've killed me."

"Is it too early for a drink?" James croaked, not much enjoying the talk about his near death experience.

Lily's eyes flashed. "_Water_ for you, death-defier. Maybe when Sirius gets back from the Hospital Wing later he can bring me a very large flask of Firewhisky as payment for my illegal healing practice."

Sirius had saluted the Head Girl before leaving for the Hospital Wing, leaving Lily to conduct a check of James' dressings and move him over to the other sofa, which she transfigured into a bed for comfort.

"I think we can get away with holing you up in here for the weekend" she explained "just say we're working on Christmas Ball stuff. It should give you a bit of time to feel better. I sent an owl to Doe this morning, so the girls know not to worry if I don't come back for the weekend."

James didn't respond, too busy trying not to wince when Lily propped up his pillows. He took in the room, trying to avoid looking at the deep red stains on the sofa that he knew would have been from him. Lily had set up a cauldron on each of their desks, and he could smell the familiar sweetness of the Wiggenweld Potion she was brewing.

He couldn't take his eyes off Sirius' t-shirt, though. His favourite grey one, now the colour of rust, was in tatters on the floor and would never been worn again. He wondered how his best friend had felt last night, having gotten there just in the nick of time, having to make those judgement calls.

If it had been the other way around, James wasn't confident that he would have held it together well enough to have saved his best friend.

After Lily taken care of breakfast for the two of them (begrudgingly calling on one of Sirius' favourite House Elves from the kitchens) and topped up James' pain potions, the Head Girl pulled up a chair at his bedside.

"Is this okay?" she asked "I promised Sirius I'd keep an eye on you."

"Thank you" he said softly "for everything."

He could see that Lily was about to cry and, on instinct, he reached out and took her hand in his. She didn't pull away.

"Didn't have much choice" she admitted, wiping a tear from one eye with her spare hand. "I just hope I didn't mess anything up. I've not used that spell in a long time and when Sirius said-" she choked back a sob "when he said it was a werewolf injury, I j-just wasn't sure if there'd be any lasting effects. W-we read up on it this morning and I think you'll be okay. I hope you'll be okay."

James squeezed her hand in a way that he hoped was reassuring.

"I'm so sorry" she muttered "I have no idea why I'm crying. You're the one who almost died last night."

"Thanks for the reminder. I don't know how Moony's ever going to get over this one."

Lily shook her head. "I just…I don't understand, James. What were you doing with him? You _knew_ it was a full moon. Where were you?"

James shifted uneasily. "You must have a lot of questions" he conceded.

"Will you answer any of them?" she shot back.

The groan he emitted felt like it took up his whole body. Where would he even begin? At what point would she report him to Dumbledore?

"I can" he said carefully. "But a lot of it isn't my story to tell."

"I've known about Remus for years" she insisted. "I asked him in fourth year and he told me. I haven't said a word about it-" she paused for a moment, looking suddenly crestfallen, "you…you do trust me, don't you?"

"Mostly."

"James, I sewed your fucking intestines back in last night."

"You're also a stickler for the rules, Evans."

She snatched her hand back. "I'm pretty sure I broke most of them last night, _Potter_, and I seem to be doing just fine."

He knew he'd overstepped, then.

"I'm sorry" James sighed "I don't want us to fight. It's just…Lily, this is so complicated. I don't want to make you even more complicit than you already are."

"Don't be a dickhead, James."

The Head Boy took a deep breath. "Okay. Shall I start with last night?"

He took her silence as an affirmative, and started to explain about Moony's process with a full moon: the Shrieking Shack, the boys walking down to the Whomping Willow under the Invisibility Cloak (an old family heirloom and, yes, it did explain how their pranks were so brilliantly executed) to check it's secure (only a small lie on the Head Boy's behalf) and last night, when they'd seen Doe and Marlene leaving Hagrid's hut and panicked, and Sirius had left the group to make sure they made it back up to the castle safely.

Lily's frown only deepened. "But I don't understand. Did he almost get out last night?"

"No."

"Then how did you end up near him? You don't go into the Shack when he's transformed, do you?!"

James weighed up his options very carefully before speaking again. "Sort of."

The Head Girl's eyes were so wide that he thought they'd fall out of her head, so he pressed on: "Lily, do you remember last year when we did Patronuses in Defence Against the Dark Arts?"

"What on earth does that have to do with werewolves?"

"Yes or no?"

"Yes."

"And you remember when you cast yours and Sirius started laughing so hard that he was thrown out of class?"

Lily frowned. She'd forgotten about that part, actually. "I do now."

"It's because, um, well…your Patronus is a doe, isn't it? And, when Remus transforms, er, I transform as well, you know, to keep him company and, um, I'm a…well...I'm a stag."

The silence lasted for a lot longer than James expected it to.

Lily thought she'd misunderstood him. "Are you…James, are you telling me that you're an Animagus?"

He didn't need to answer.

"Bloody hell" she breathed "I knew you were good at Transfiguration but that's just _unfair_. Did McGonagall teach you?"

"No" he admitted "I taught myself and I'm not on the Registry."

"But that's-"

"Illegal? Yes. But I wanted to help Remus out, so that's how I do it. Last night just got a bit out of hand."

Lily considered for a moment. "This all makes a lot more sense now. Is that why you all have those stupid nicknames? What are Sirius and Peter?"

James flushed "I didn't say-"

Lily shot him down with a look. "Please. We both know that Sirius is just as clever as you and wouldn't want to miss out on the fun. And you four always do everything together, so…"

"Lily" his voice was serious "you can't tell anyone about this. I'm begging you."

The redhead eyes him curiously. "Do you normally need to beg your friends to keep secrets for you?"

James felt like he was walking into a trap. "No…?"

"There you go then" she bristled. "I asked my questions, you've answered them, and this conversation never happened."

Sometimes, just sometimes, James underestimated the best witch of his generation and today he was paying for it.

"Now" Lily, business-like, flicked open a textbook "if you don't mind, I've got a Charms essay to finish. I didn't expect to spend my weekend playing matron."

James smiled "you make it sound filthy."

The redhead rolled her eyes "you'd be so lucky, James.

Didn't he know it.


End file.
